At one time the speed limit for motor vehicles was two miles per hour.  That was in urban areas.  In the countryside, a driver could speed up to four miles per hour.  These limits were imposed by the English “Red Flag” Acts, starting in 1861.  This was long before the arrival of anything we would recognize as an automobile, but the object of the legislation was the control of steam powered land vehicles, some of which were experimental, some of which proved to be of certain limited practical use, and all of which faced considerable opposition.

The opposition to these steam powered “road locomotives” was based on allegations the machines damaged the unpaved roads of the day, scared horses, disturbed householders at night, posed a threat to life and limb, and generally disrupted the environment.  The opposition was reportedly encouraged by vested interests of the day - the railway industry and horse drawn carriage companies.

To add to the difficulty of advancing steam powered technology for road transportation, the Red Flag Acts required that a steam powered vehicle have a crew of three, plus a fourth individual walking ahead of the vehicle, holding a red flag to warn of its imminent, and reputedly dangerous, arrival.

A lightning rod for this discontent was the death on 31 August 1869 of Mary Ward, an Irish aristocrat, scientist and author of the popular book “Sketches With the Microscope”, (eight editions) and a “Guide to Astronomy.  She was riding as a passenger in a steam powered “motorcar” when the vehicle made a sharp turn, and Mrs. Ward fell out and was run over by one of the vehicle’s rear steel wheels, which broke her neck, killing her almost instantly.  Was the vehicle going faster than four mph?  We do not know.

Anyway, the danger posed by this mode of transportation was thus notoriously established, and the Red Flag Acts remained as an impediment to industrial progress, with some gradual remission, until the 1890’s.  By that time the writing was on the wall, and with the 1888, German Benz, gasoline fueled vehicle having received wide attention, and the autonomous “horseless carriage” concept being firmly accepted as both viable and inevitable.

Mary Ward has the unfortunate place in history as the first person killed in a motor vehicle accident, although this distinction is also afforded by some sources to the first pedestrian victims, in England and America, to fall in encounters with Benz derived vehicles recognizable to us as cars.

And what of the steam-powered contraption she was involved with as a pioneer?  Some steamers were manufactured in volume in the early days of the automobile industry, with well-known examples such as the Stanley Steamer remaining in production into the 1920’s.  Problems with inadequate acceleration seem to have been the main drawback.  At the time safety was not a paramount consideration.  Nowadays, we look at the potential for a boiler explosion cause by a collision, as a fearsome reason to stay away from putting pressurized, super-heated steam systems on the roadways.