There were some who wished to see the speed limit removed altogether. The influential Automobile Club (soon to become the Royal Automobile Club or RAC) was split on the subject; the chair of the working group on the bill was John Douglas-Scott-Montagu MP who took a moderate line supporting speed limits, but was opposed on this by the chairman of the organisation Roger Wallace who were 'strongly against any speed limit' and described Montagu as a 'traitor'. The secretary of the club publicly proposed a 'compromise' of 25mph without authorisation. Parliamentary debates were described as 'bitter'.[3]
Sections of the act
Section 1 introduced the crime of reckless driving, and imposed penalties.[2]
Section 2 introduced the mandatory vehicle registration of all motor cars with the county council or county borough council in which the driver was resident. The council was to issue a unique number to each car, and prescribe the manner in which it was to be displayed on the vehicle. The Act also made it an offence to drive a motor car on a public road without displaying its registration number.[2] The Local Government Boards for England and Wales, for Scotland, and for Ireland were responsible for regulating the format of registration numbers and the design of number plates.
Section 3 made it compulsory for drivers of motor cars in the United Kingdom to have a driving licence from "the first day of January, nineteen hundred and four".[4] No driving test was required, the licence being issued by the council on payment of five shillings. The qualifying age for a car licence was 17 years and for a motor cycle, 14 years.[2]
Section 9 allowed for lower speed limits to be implemented after a local inquiry.[5]
Section 10 required local authorities to erect signs indicating where there were prohibitions or speed limits lower than 20 mph and to warn of dangerous corners, cross roads and precipitous places;
Regulations were introduced regarding the braking ability of vehicles.[6]
Legacy
The Local Government Board issued a circular on10 March 1904, Motor Car Use and Construction, which set out four standard designs for traffic signs:
UK Traffic Signs 1904
Prohibitory signs: to be surmounted by a solid red disc 18 inches in diameter
Speed limit signs: to have a hollow white ring 18 inches in diameter above a plate giving the speed limit in figures
Warning signs: to be surmounted by a hollow red equilateral triangle with 18-inch sides
Other notices: to be on diamond-shaped boards
Local authorities started placing such traffic signs. The first three designs are the ancestors of modern traffic signs. Warning signs of a dangerous corner survive on the approach to the car park at Carisbrooke Castle, Isle of Wight.
A Royal Commission on Motor Cars was established in 1905 which reported in 1906[8] and recommended that motorcars should be taxed, that the speed limit should be abolished (by a majority vote only) and raised concern about the manner in which speed traps were being used to raise revenue in rural areas rather than being used to protect lives in towns.[9] Amendments were discussed in 1905, 1911, 1913 1914 under the titles Motor Car Act (1903) Amendment bill and Motor Car Act (1903) Amendment (No 2) bill.[10]
In the Irish Free State, the 1903 act was likewise continued by annual Expiring Laws Acts,[11] until the Road Traffic Act 1933 repealed both the 1896 and 1903 acts.[12]
Royal Commission on Motor Cars (23 July 1906). I: Report. Parliamentary papers. Vol.HC 1906 xlviii 1. Cd. 3080.
Royal Commission on Motor Cars (23 July 1906). II: Evidence, Appendices, and Index. Vol.HC 1906 xlviii 89. Cd. 3081.
↑"MOTOR CAR LEGISLATION". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). 16 July 1907. Retrieved 17 April 2010. The noble Earl said: My Lords, in 1905, a very important and influential Royal Commission was appointed to consider the subject of motor cars, and what legislation was desirable when the Act at that time existing, and which was limited to three years, expired. That Commission held a great many sittings and examined a great many witnesses; it was extremely painstaking in its work, and presented a very carefully considered and somewhat voluminous Report... I regard the abolition of the speed limit as the most important recommendation of the Royal Commission... Policemen are not stationed in the villages where there are people about who might be in danger, but are hidden in hedges or ditches by the side of the most open roads in the country... I am entirely in sympathy with what the noble Earl said with regard to police traps. In my opinion they are manifestly absurd as a protection to the public, and they are used in many counties merely as a means of extracting money from the passing traveller in a way which reminds one of the highwaymen of the Middle Ages.
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