On this day, Aug. 27, in 1904, Newport, R.I. Judge Darius Baker imposed the nation’s first jail sentencing for speeding in an automobile.
A jail term was especially harsh because automobile traffic laws were still new. The offender was caught traveling a breakneck 15 mph.
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Although laws against galloping horses and speeding carriages had been on the books in America since 1678, the first automobile traffic code wasn’t implemented until 1903.
Even before then, a New York cabbie was ticketed for reckless driving. On May 21, 1899, Jacob German, operator of a taxicab for the Electric Vehicle Co., was stopped by Bicycle Roundsman Schueller for driving at 12 mph on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan. German didn’t have to turn over his license and registration because, of course, those items weren’t around for another few years.
— Scott McCabe
