World’s first drunk driving arrest was made on this day in 1897; Read more

On this day, September 10, in the year 1897, the UK police made the world’s first-ever arrest on charges of ‘drunken driving’ in London. A 25-year-old taxi driver named George Smith was arrested by the cops after he met with an accident due to intoxication. George smashed his car into the building as the police were summoned on the scene, who suspected him drunk and made an arrest. Until then, the breathalyzer had not been developed, neither the UK had passed the law against drunk driving that prohibited the motor operation under influence of alcohol. The police made an arrest citing a possible mishap, averted, while the ‘drunk driver’ may well have injured somebody on the road, according to several reports. 

Approximately 123 years ago, at the time, the man pleads guilty for his charges and the police had let go of him after imposing a penalty of 25 shillings. Reports also suggest that the cab driver had openly admitted to being drunk on the scene to the police as there was no fear of the law that prohibited people from driving a motor vehicle while drunk on alcohol. Additionally, the cops had no way to test the alcohol in the body of the suspect to ascertain their state of drunkenness. After the world’s first incident of an accident due to booze came to light across the world, the United States became the first country to pass the first drunken driving ‘law’ in New York in 1910 that prohibited the drivers from assuming wheels when intoxicated.

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Reports of George's accident circulated for slamming his primitive motor into a wall on New Bond Street, shattering a water pipe and beading on a window. While the cops had caught him accusing of fast speed, his noticeable drunk state spun the charges, as per a report by the Science Museum, UK where George’s cab today stands in the display. He was fined for an estimated $10 million in 2020. The original new report, published from the year 1897 by the paper named Morning Post has been shared by the British Newspaper Archive on its website. It quotes the conversation between the cops and the driver as recorded, 

Driver: “How fast was I going?” 

Constable: “I should think about eight miles an hour.” 

Driver: “At the time I was going up an incline and could not have been going [even] six miles an hour. The fastest the car will travel is eight miles an hour”. 

Constable: “You are not charged with driving furiously, but with being drunk. What about that?”

Driver: “I have nothing to say to that. I admit having two or three glasses of beer. I am very sorry. It is the first time I have been charged with being drunk in charge of a car.”

[The first person to be arrested and charged for driving under the influence of alcohol was George Smith, a London cab driver. A news report from 1897 by Morning Post preserved with The British Newspaper Archive. Credit: BNA's release on Website]

[George Smith was driving an 1897 electric taxi like this when he was arrested. Credit: The Science Museum Website]

Taken to Marlborough Street Police Court

According to the National Motor Museum Trust’s news release, the drunk driver was taken to the Marlborough Street Police Court after he was arrested by Police Constable Russell. After the driver was booked, anyone caught was fined for 40 shillings and imprisonment with or without hard labour for up to a month. Later, the Criminal Justice Act of 1925 in the UK made drunk driving a criminal offense. However, it was the Road Traffic Act in the year 1930 that made it totally illegal to drive, attempt to drive, or be in charge of a motor vehicle on a road or public place under influence of alcohol. In 1936, Dr. Rolla Harger designed a device known as the " Drunkometer. It was the balloon-like object like the modern-day breath analyzer that need people to breathe in it to determine whether they were intoxicated.

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