c. 36) removed the strict rules and UK speed limits that were included in the earlier Locomotive Acts which had greatly restricted the adoption of motorised vehicles in the United Kingdom.

[b] The Mayor of Tunbridge Wells, Sir David Salomons, organized the first automobile exhibition to be held on 15 October 1895 in his local agricultural society's showgrounds.

[4] The day before the flotation of the Daimler Motor Company Ltd and Lawson's promotional gathering of almost 1,700 people on 15 February 1896, the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, was driven about the location, the Imperial Institute, by Simms' friend, Evelyn Ellis, in the Daimler-engined Panhard & Levassor[4] which Ellis and Simms had brought in from France and used in July 1895 for Britain's first long-distance motorcar journey – Southampton to Datchet and on to Malvern without police intervention.

[4] By 1895 some drivers of early lightweight steam-powered autocars thought that these would be legally classed as a horseless carriage and would therefore be exempt from the need for a preceding pedestrian.

Following the 1895 general election a new parliament, formed by the Conservative and Liberal Unionist parties, debated the proposal again, and the act was passed, taking effect on 14 November 1896.

[9] In celebration of the act being passed Lawson organised an Emancipation Run, which took place on 14 November 1896 when thirty vehicles travelled from London to Brighton.