Speed limits predate cars.

A woman holds a speed limit sign at a road junction, 1938
Credit: © Smith Archive/Getty Images
Author Bess Lovejoy
November 11, 2026

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Centuries before automobiles existed, authorities around the globe were already trying to keep people from treating the streets like racetracks. Rules against fast driving go back at least to the T’ang Code, written in China in 653 CE. Article 392.1a prohibited “all cases of recklessly driving carts or racing horses through the streets and lanes of cities or where there are groups of people without any reason.” The punishment was no mere speeding ticket, but 50 blows with a light stick.

In Europe, meanwhile, a 1528 Amsterdam bylaw stipulated that the drivers of sleighs and wagons had to walk beside their vehicles instead of sitting upon them, so that they could move only at a pedestrian pace. The law noted that “driving caused great disorder, often mixed with malice, as people, specifically women and children, are at great danger of being driven over.” 

Medieval Londoners also didn’t need sports cars to get in trouble for speeding. An ordinance included in the 15th-century Liber Albus (a medieval collection of city laws) prohibited drivers from moving an empty cart faster than a loaded one, lest they owe 40 pence and potentially go to prison. (Presumably, carts laden with goods went much more slowly than empty ones.) A London rule from 1633 got even more specific: “No man shall gallop his horse in the Street, under paine of two shillings.”

Across the Atlantic, New Amsterdam (now New York) adopted a similar approach in 1652. Its ordinance banned galloping with wagons, carts, or sleighs, and required drivers to walk alongside and lead their horses, except on the broad public highway. By the 19th century, some restrictions specified miles per hour: Britain’s Locomotive Act of 1861 limited mechanically powered road vehicles (including steam traction engines) to 10 mph on highways and 5 mph through cities, towns, and villages. 

Automobiles eventually got their own rules, of course. In 1901, Connecticut became the first U.S. state to set speed limits for cars, capping them at 12 mph within cities and 15 mph outside them. Yet horses still shaped the law: Motorists had to slow down when meeting one and stop if the animal appeared frightened.

By the Numbers

Did you know?

The first person charged with a speeding offense was going 8 mph.

On January 28, 1896, Walter Arnold drove his motorcar, or “horse-less carriage,” through Paddock Wood, Kent, England, at a seemingly modest 8 mph. But the local limit was just 2 mph. A police officer gave chase on a bicycle and caught him, in what Guinness World Records recognizes as the first charge for a speeding offense (at least insofar as motoring goes, since horse-drawn traffic had faced restrictions and penalties long before). 

Speeding wasn’t Arnold’s only problem: He also faced charges for operating his vehicle without a horse on a public road, manning it with fewer than three people, and failing to display his name and address. Two days later, a magistrate found him guilty on all four counts. Arnold’s car was an imported German Benz; a few months later, his company began marketing its own version, the Arnold Motor Carriage. That means it’s possible his earlier need for speed was simply a publicity stunt.

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