A closer look
New Amsterdam which is now known as modern day New York City passed the very first speeding law in North American history back in 1652 to crack down on reckless horse-drawn wagons. The local colonial government strictly prohibited anyone from riding a horse or driving a cart at a gallop within the city limits essentially establishing a zero-tolerance policy for aggressive seventeenth-century street racing. The penalty for getting caught drifting your wooden wagon too fast around a dirt corner was a fine of two Flemish pounds which was a massive fortune at the time. It is oddly comforting to realize that New Yorkers have literally always been terrifyingly aggressive drivers and city officials have been trying to tax them for it for nearly four hundred consecutive years with absolutely zero success
