Locomotive Acts

The Locomotive Acts were a series of Acts of Parliament in the United Kingdom regulating the use of mechanically propelled vehicles on public highways in Britain during the latter part of the 19th century. One of them, the Locomotives Act 1865 is known as the Red Flag Act.

The first three, the Locomotive Act 1861 (24 & 25 Vict. c. 70), the Locomotives Act 1865 (28 & 29 Vict. c. 83) and Highways and Locomotives (Amendment) Act 1878 (41 & 42 Vict. c. 77), regulated the use of locomotives and restricted their speed and operation. The second also reorganised the highway districts of the Highways Act 1835 as highway boards and vested in them former turnpike roads in their area and those which subsequently disturnpiked. The final act, the Locomotives Act 1898, required locomotives which were used on highways in a county to be licensed by that county and other locomotives (agricultural and steam rollers) to be registered. All locomotives were to carry plates showing their licence or registration.

The Locomotive Act 1861 regulated the use of locomotives (which at this date were all steam-powered) on turnpike and other public roads. It limited the maximum size and weight of locomotives and set the rates of toll which turnpikes could charge. Locomotives needed a crew of two (although not stated, these would have been the driver and the stoker), with a third man if there were more than two waggons.

Locomotives were subject to a speed limit of 5 mph in towns and 10 mph in the country. They were banned from suspension bridges and required consent to use other bridges on which notices had been placed that the bridge was only for the ordinary traffic of the district.

The Locomotives Act 1865 (the "Red Flag Act") imposed on road locomotives a speed limit of 2 mph in towns and 4 mph in the country. It increased the crew to three, of which one was to walk 60 yards ahead carrying a red flag.

The Highways and Locomotives (Amendment) Act 1878 repealed the requirement for the man to carry a red flag, instead requiring him to walk at least twenty yards ahead to assist approaching horses and carriages. It retained the speed limits of the 1865 Act. County authorities could pass byelaws to regulate the use of locomotives on their roads and charge up to £10 a year license fee.

The Locomotives on Highways Act 1896 defined a new class of light locomotives weighing less than 3 tons, to which the 1861, 1865 and 1878 Locomotive Acts did not apply. This removed from such vehicles the requirement for a crew of three with one man walking ahead, the speed limits and the bridge restrictions. It defined such vehicles as carriages and subject to the laws relating to them. It specified a speed limit of 14 mph with local authorities able to impose lower ones. This allowed the automotive industry in the United Kingdom to develop soon after the development of the first practical automobile (see History of the automobile).

While the Locomotives Act 1898 was nominally about regulating the weight of locomotives and waggons, section 6 allowed counties or boroughs with a population greater than 10,000 to pass byelaws restricting the use of highways by locomotives on their roads. Some authorities, notably in South Wales and Middlesex, used this to curtail the use of hundreds of roads by all locomotives.