WHAT IS NEGLIGENCE?

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17094, 29 October 1929, Page 11

WHAT IS NEGLIGENCE?

DUTY OF MOTORISTS A JUDGE'S VIEWPOINT (Per Ptoks Association.) PALMERSTON N., this day. An indication of the viewpoint he took in determining what constituted negligence bv a motor driver was given by Mr. Justice Blair in the Supreme. Court, when, in the course of his charge to the grand jury, be referred to a case of alleged negligent driving against a motorist, in which death was involved. "It has been suggested that in order to constitute negligence if is necessary to prove criminal negligence; that is of an aggravated kind," commented His Honor. "1 don't think that is so. The, law, as 1 understand it, is laid down, by statute, that if a person is in charge of a motor vehicle capable of endangering another person, where, an accident is due to negligence, in my opinion, it is not necessary to prove ordinary criminal negligence, but merely that the driver failed to carry out his obligatory duties. "The statute itself lays down quite clearly what is the, duly of a driver. It states that every one wdio has in his charge, or under his control, anything which, whether animate, or inanimate, in the absence of precautions or care may endanger human life, is Under a legal obligation to take reasonable precautions and use reasonable care. Failure to do that constitutes negligence, which is sufficient to establish a breach of the statutory duly of a driver. I desire to make it quite plain that I do not subscribe to the doctrine that there is any greater measure of duty in a civil than in a criminal case."