Speed

HISTORY

Descriptive speed limits (e.g. "galloping pace" "walking pace") date back as far as the 1600s.

The first maximum speed limit was the 10 mph (16 km/h) limit introduced in the United Kingdom in 1861. Four years later it was reduced to 2 mph (3 km/h) in towns and 4 mph (6 km/h) in rural areas by the 1865 'red flag act' with men with red flags walking ahead of horse-less vehicles.

President Ulysses S. Grant was once stopped for speeding in his horse-drawn buggy. When the Washington police officer realized who his suspect was, he offered to forget about it, but Grant insisted on paying the fine.

The speed limit in New York City was 8 miles per hour in 1895.

Historic New Hampshire speed limit sign. By Jayron32 -

Mr Walter Arnold of East Peckham, in South East England became the first person to be fined for speeding on January 28, 1896. He was fined 1 shilling, plus costs, for speeding at 8 mph (13 km/h), thus exceeding the contemporary speed limit of 2 mph (3.2 km/h). He was also fined for using a locomotive without a horse and not having his name and address on the vehicle. Arnold had been arrested by a policeman who'd chased him on his bicycle.

The speed limit for horseless carriages in Britain was raised from 4mph (2mph in towns) to 14 mph (23 km/h) (the estimated speed of a horse being driven 'furiously') on November 14, 1896. The increase in the speed limit is celebrated to this day by the annual London to Brighton Veteran Car Run.

French aristocrat and race car driver. Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat set the first official land speed record on December 18, 1898. He averaged 63.15 km/h (39.24 mph) over 1 km (0.62 mi) in Achères, Yvelines, France using a Jeantaud electric car. 

The first speeding infraction in the U.S. was committed by New York City taxi driver Jacob German in an electric car. German was caught driving his taxi on May 20, 1899 at a blistering 12 MPH (19.3 km/h) down Lexington Street in Manhattan.

The speed of 100km/h was first reached by a car in 1899. It was a Belgian electric vehicle with a light alloy torpedo shaped bodywork and batteries.

Connecticut became the first US state on May 21, 1901 to pass a law on regulating vehicle speed. 12 mph in cities, 15 mph on country roads.

The first recorded written speeding ticket in the United States was for Harry Myers in 1904. He was ticketed for traveling at a speed of 12 mph on West Third Street in Dayton, Ohio.

Boxer Jack Johnson was once pulled over for a $50 speeding ticket. When he handed over a $100 bill, the officer protested that he couldn't make change for that much, Johnson told him to keep the change as he was going to make his return trip at the same speed.

The 30mph speed limit for motor vehicles in built-up areas in Britain came into force on March 12, 1935. When the first new 30mph speed limit signs first appeared, many were removed by angry motorists — eight were thrown in ponds.

On January 28, 1938, a new World Land Speed Record on a public road was set in Germany at 268.9 mph. That record, set by Rudolf Caracciola in a Mercedes-Benz, remained the fastest ever officially timed speed on a public road until broken on November 5, 2017 by Koenigsegg in an Agera RS driven by Niklas Lilja, achieving 445.6 km/h (276.9 mph) on a closed highway in Nevada. 

The existing World Land Speed Record on a public road is claimed to be held by a production car, built by SSC North America and called a 'Tuatara." The car driven by Oliver Webb averaged 316 mph (579 km/h)  during two runs on highway 160 in Southern Nevada between Las Vegas and Pahrump on October 10, 2020. Following an online controversy over the accuracy of the claimed speeds, SSC have stated that they will re-run the record attempt.

Because of the blackouts during World War II, a 20mph speed limit in darkness was introduced in the UK an attempt to combat the high number of road accidents. Also road signs were removed due to the threat of enemy invasion.

The US implemented a nationwide "Victory Speed Limit" of 35 mph during World War II to conserve gasoline and rubber for the war effort.

Barbara Castle's first act on becoming UK Transport Minister in 1965 was to introduce on December 22, 1965 a 70 mph speed limit to all rural roads including motorways. The 70 mph speed limit on UK motorways was a supposedly temporary measure, Previously, there had been no speed limit.

The three-man crew on Apollo 10 reached the highest speed ever achieved by humans in 1969 when they hit 24,791mph on their way back to Earth, having circled the Moon.

The record surface speed on the moon is 10.56 mph. It was set with the lunar rover.

Eugene Cernan test drives the Apollo 17 lunar rover Wikipedia

Richard Nixon signed the Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act on January 2, 1974, requiring all states to lower the maximum speed limit to 55 MPH. The law was intended to conserve gasoline supplies during an embargo imposed by Arab oil-producing countries.

The water speed record is one of the deadliest competitions with an 85% fatality rate. The current record of 317.60mph was set on October 8, 1978 by Ken Warby at Blowering Dam, Australia, using a vessel built in his backyard with an engine purchased for $69.

In 1989 various US states began to increase the speed limit on interstate highways in limited areas from 55 to 65 miles per hour

The first 75-mile-an-hour speed limit signs were erected in Montana and Wyoming in 1995.

The first supersonic land speed record was set by Andy Green in ThrustSSC (United Kingdom) in 1997, exactly 50 years and 1 day after Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier in the Earth's atmosphere.

FUN SPEED FACTS

The highest posted speed limit in the world is 160 km/h (99 mph), which applies to some motorways in the United Arab Emirates.

Many autobahns in Germany have no speed limit, though there is a speed recommendation of 130 km (80.8 mi) per hour. Drivers going faster than 130km/h can be made responsible for an accident that they are involved in.

Scottish engineer and inventor Robert Watson-Watt, who developed Radar in the 1930s, was caught speeding with a Radar gun. He reportedly said "If I'd known what they were going to do with it, I'd have never have invented it!'"

The fastest speeding ticket ever issued was in May 2003 for a Swedish-built sports vehicle. The motorist was operating a Koenigseggs CCR, and was allegedly going 242 mph (389 km/hr) in a 75 mph zone.

The largest speeding fine ever levied was a €650,000 ($1,000,000) given to a Swedish motorist caught driving a a Mercedes-Benz SLR at 300 kmh (186 mph) on a Swiss motorway. The fine was so high because in Switzerland speeding fines are worked out using a formula based on the income of the motorists and the severity of the speed.

The unconfirmed record for fastest moving manmade object is a manhole cover propelled by a nuclear detonation. A high-speed camera trained on the lid caught only one frame of it moving upward before it vanished—which means it was moving about 125,000 miles per hour - 0.02% the speed of light.

Humans can break the sound barrier by jumping from an altitude of more than 127,000 feet, since the atmosphere has thinner gravity.

There's a speed camera lottery in Stockholm, Sweden where drivers who drive at or under the speed limit are entered to win money. The prize fund comes from the fines paid by people who were speeding.

In Finland, the cost of a speeding ticket is determined by your income. In 2002, a Nokia executive got a ticket for $103,000 for going 45 in a 30 zone.

Students at the University of Leicester found that you’d have to drive at 119 million mph to evade a speed camera. That’s a sixth of the speed of light.

Japan has a network of roads that play music as you drive over them at the correct speed.

In Stringtown, Oklahoma, population 400, 76 percent of the town's 2013 budget came from traffic tickets. After a state investigation into excessive speed trapping the town's police department was disbanded.

Mississippi once set a speed limit of 80 miles per hour on toll roads, despite the fact there are no toll roads in Mississippi.

The world's fastest land animal was a South African cheetah named Sarah who, at age 11, ran 100m in 5.95 seconds (or 61 mph). She lived in the Cincinnati Zoo and passed away at 15 years of age in 2016.

If you accelerated to 1% the speed of light in one second, you'd instantaneously be killed by the G-forces.