Mrs B is a keen family historian. She drew my attention to the following article in one of her magazines. The article is almost exactly 101 years old.
So the Chief Constable of Hertfordshire is the killjoy we all have to thank.
Source: Hertfordshire Mercury, 13 May 1905
The Hertfordshire Police and Motor-Cars
In consequence of numerous complaints regarding the reckless manner and dangerous and excessive speed at which motor cars and motor cycles have been driven along the highways of the County, the Chief Constable has adopted a plan which bids fair to be successful in dealing with the nuisance and rendering the highways safer for those adopting other than a mechanical means of travelling.
The police now, at varying times, picket various stretches of road, ranging from three to seven miles and including, if possible, one or more villages and hamlets. The time and number of every car or motorcycle entering one of these stretches is noted and on the car arriving at the other end of the picketed stretch of road, it is stopped, the time of arrival noted and the particulars of the driver’s license taken down. The police watches are accurately set together before the men go on duty. When the police returns reach the Head Office the following morning they are carefully compared and all cases of excess speed over the limits are reported to the Chief Constable for instructions thereon. This system has been in force since the Easter holidays and appears to have been very successful in reducing the speed of motor cars and motor cycles on the highways. It seems to be a much fairer way of dealing with motors than in the setting of police traps over one or two furlongs, which is really a very unreliable test of speed of motors over a longer distance.
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Originally Posted by skidmark
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