Battle against the 12mph speed limit

And indeed it was: while the offence of assaulting a borough constable carried a penalty of £5, the maximum fine for speeding at that time was £10, making exceeding the speed limit an offence equivalent in law with "harbouring thieves knowingly" or "selling poisoned grain".

The Times had decidedly strong views on the conflict between motorists and the law: "The consequences of a bad law betray themselves at once," thundered its leading article of May 20, 1902. "Probably no reasonable man defends it. But there are unreasonable men, men of prejudice and prescription, to whom any novelty is an abomination and the motor-car the most abominable of novelties, and some of them have to administer this absurd and impracticable law."

Something needed to be done urgently and my father, the MP for the New Forest, played the central role in a bold campaign to abolish the speed limit altogether and replace it with the offence of "furious driving" outlined in a 1835 Act originally intended to control dangerous horsemen.

Police speed traps were often wildly inaccurate and local magistrates from the "horsey set" could prove fiercely biased against motorists.

By 1903 cars like the new 60hp Mercedes could travel quite safely at 70-80 mph and "Mr Montagu's Bill" - based on suggestions by the Legislative Committee of the Autoi-nobile Club - aimed to give drivers of such cars "greater freedom of speed" in exchange for the introduction of number plates so that malefactors could readily be identified.

Though it had the backing of this country's first motoring Prime Minister, A. J. Balfour, Mr Montagu's Bill failed to get a second reading in 1902 due to lack of parliamentary time. My father reintroduced it that autumn, and again it ran out of time. However, that July the Government introduced its own - virtually identical - Motor-Cars Bill in the Lords.

The Motor-Cars Bill was passed to the Commons intact on July 28. It seemed as though the speed limit was to become a dead letter, but that proved to be a forlorn hope once the Commons began debating the Bill. Virtually every speaker demanded a compulsory speed limit.

My father was isolated: the 120-odd "motoring MPs" had failed to give him the support he needed. The Govemment risked losing the Bill and a compromise speed limit of 20 mph was accepted without a division.

Imperfect though the amended Bill was, it was nevertheless the first motorists' charter. In return for fairer treatment by the law, motorists had to show that they were responsible citizens, registering their cars, displaying number plates and taking out a driving licence.