RULES OF ROAD

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23067, 18 June 1938, Page 18

RULES OF ROAD

DUTY AT INTERSECTION LOOKING. TO THE LEFT SUPREME COURT COMMENT The appe.nl of Arthur S. Vaughan, (and agent (Mr. North) against a judgment in a motor collision case has been dismissed in a reserved judgment issued in the Supremo Court by Mr. Justice Callan The respondent was Roy Henry Page, builder (Mr. Finlay), who was awarded by Mr. C. R. Orr Walker, 6.M., £67 18s damages for damage caused to his car. The accident happened at. the intersection of Dominion Road and Mount Albert Road, when cars driven by Page and Vaughan came into collision. His Honor said the defendant had been clearly negligent, but it was contended that 'notwithstanding the negligence of the defendant, the plaintiff's claim should have failed because the plaintiff hiniself was clearly guilty of contributory negligence. His Honor did not agree that the magistrate was compelled to find that the plaintiff entered upon the intereection without ever having looked to his left at all. Indeed, His Honor was Eatisfied that was not a fact. Nor could he ngree that such conduct on the part of the plaintiff would be negligence contributing to the result. The appellant did not dispute that the duties of watching to his right and to his front which lay upon the plaintiff were 6f primary importance and more urgent than any duty of watchfulness toward his left. To say that a man who entered upon an intersection without having looked at all to his left was necessarily guilty of negligence seemed to His Honor the enunciation of something .which might sometimes state less and sometimes state more than the duty of a motorist at an intersection. The magistrate i appeared to have wisely Bummed up the whole matter in a short and commonsense way, and avoided laying down any precise rules in a matter in which it was, as His Honor saw it, unwise to attempt precision. He agreed with what the magistrate had said, and would dismiss the appeal, with £lO 10s costs to the respondent.