MOTORING COLLISION

Waipa Post, Volume 44, Issue 3178, 14 May 1932, Page 8

MOTORING COLLISION

MAGISTRATE’S DECISION REVERSED. EVERYBODY HAS RIGHT TO USE HIGHWAYS. Following upon a collision between a Texas petrol lorry and baby Austin car at a sharp corner of a main road on February 16th last year, Mr J. L. Stout, S.M., gave judgment for £77 2s 6d damages in favour of the owner of the baby car. The magistrate^eld that the petrol company was negligent in that it had sent a cumbersome vehicle over a road so narrow that the driver was compelled for safety to travel along the centre of the road instead of on his correct side. Against this decision the Texas Company appealed in the Palmerston North Supreme Court on Wednesday, submitting that the Magistrate was wrong in his ruling htat the companv was negligent in using this particular highway and contended also that the driver of the small car had displayed negligence.

His Honour ruled out immediately the magistrate’s decision regarding the use of the road, stating that everyone had a right to use a highway. His subsequent comments are interesting. His Honour said the appeal was not one in which he had to judge the relative value of the evidence on each side. When he had first read the file, he had come to the conclusion that he must disagree with the magistrate’s finding and the argument had not altered that opinion. The lorry driver would be justified, if there was a danger in going out too fax*, in keeping to the middle of the road, taking care on approaching cornel’s, to swing out sufficiently far for another vehicle to pass. It was while in the act of swinging out that he was struck by the other car. His Honour said he unable to see any negligence in the lorry driver doing what he did. However, the case went further. Assuming that the lorry driver was negligent, what was the duty of plaintiff? He was driving a small car and one easily stopped. What was his duty on seeing the head of the lorry appearing round the corner? It was to be prepared to stop his car. The action of a reasonable man would have been to get down to so slow a speed that he could stop as soon as he saw the road was blocked. One could not help feeling that he was hamperecTby the child on his knee. The appeal was allowed with seven guineas costs and disbursements.