MOTORISTS DUTIES

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 732, 3 August 1929, Page 11

MOTORISTS DUTIES

ENTERING MAIN ROADS Press Association PALMERSTON N.. Today. During the hearing in the Supreme Court case of a claim for damages arising froiyt injuries received, in a motor-car collision at a road intersection, counsel for defendant addressed his Honour at length on the obligations of drivers at intersections. Ho said all judicial expressions dealt with tho higher duty resting on the motorist proceeding from a subsidiary to a main road. The off-side rule should not be allowed to detract from the imperative duties laid down in previous cases. Unless people were forced to observe care in emerging on to the main roads there would very likely be fatal accidents. It was important that all* regulations should be placed in their true perspective. His Honour: Are you pressing this case as of very great importance? Counsel: Of very great importance to magistrates, who want some direction. Counsel cited numerous authorities in support of his contention that no rule affected the common law of liability laid down, and insisted upon, by judges, that on entering a main road a motorist had to feel his way in so that he could stop dead if necessary, and nothing should induce the court to depart from that view. Counsel for plaintiff submitted that the off-side rule was a statutory one, taking tho place of the old regulations. If a man did observe the off-side rule it was no excuse for negligence, and ho was still bound to exercise every precaution. He stated that if the common law differed from the regulations on traffic rules at intersections, an alteration was necessary. Decision was reserved.