PastImperfect/the earliest days of motoring: The early days of motoring were a fraught time for motorists. However, considerably less so in Ireland than in Britain, for here the constabulary turned a somewhat less jaundiced eye towards what one MP called "those stinking engines of iniquity".
In Britain, in 1908, the Anti-Dangerous League of Hove claimed that reckless motorists had compelled 100,000 people to withdraw their horses and carriages from the public roads, in the process throwing 100,000 men out of work. At the same time, the League claimed, 500,000 cyclists had forsaken their machines for fear of "scorching" motorists.
Prior to 1900 it was a rare motorist who ventured out on to the public highway during daylight hours. Maximum speed was limited to 4mph by the Locomotives on Highways Act (which incidently also rendered the use of a man walking ahead of any car with a red flag strictly unnecessary). Some counties enforced this speed limit so strictly that when in 1895 Sir David Salomons organised a motor show in his home town of Tunbridge Wells, he faced a problem as the police would only allow cars on the roads before 7am. However, he found an unexpected ally in the form of the police commissioner, who asked what route the cars would be taking and upon being told said: "You'll have no problems: you'll find that any policeman you happen to pass will have his back turned to you. . . "
In 1896 a motoring lobby led by Salomons introduced a Bill in Parliament to change the law. Under it cars were allowed to drive at 14mph, although the Local Government Board used its powers to bring this down to 12mph.
In Ireland however, the Local Government Board under Sir Henry Robinson - himself a keen pioneer motorist - maintained the speed limit at the intended 14mph. Thus in the first decade of motoring here, motorists not only suffered less harassment than their fellows in Britain but could legally drive at a higher speed.
In 1903, Prime Minister Balfour attempted to give motorists a fairer deal, proposing to abolish speed limits while increasing penalties for "furious driving". But by the time Parliament had brought the new law into being at the end of 1903, only a small increase in the speed limit had been allowed - to 20mph - while registration numbers and driving licences had been introduced for the first time.
By then there were some 8,400 cars on the roads of Britain and Ireland, and government had recognised the motor car as a valuable source of income and one to which it would return again and again in the years to come.