A judge had been entitled to find that a taxi driver was responsible for a collision with a pedestrian since he should have been monitoring the road ahead and, if he had done so, he would have seen the pedestrian in time to avoid the accident.
A taxi driver appealed against a decision that he was liable for personal injury damages after his vehicle struck a pedestrian crossing the road.
The accident took place near the centre of Leeds at around midnight. The road was a single-lane, one-way road about 10 metres wide including a 3 metre bus lane. About 40 metres before the point of collision, a lane carrying traffic from the inner ring road joined the road from the right. On the other side of the road was a public house. At the time of the accident a number of taxis were waiting outside the public house. The respondent had been talking to two people on the pavement. His movements had been captured on CCTV but the recording was not continuous. He had set off into the road and increased his speed as he crossed diagonally. He was in the roadway for 2.5 seconds before he was struck by the appellant’s taxi. The appellant had been driving at between 25 and 27.5 mph. He braked and was travelling at 23 mph at the time of the collision. The appellant said that he had checked his mirrors and blind spot for traffic joining from the right and had looked to the right in case there were pedestrians emerging from where the taxis were waiting. It was only after that that he saw the respondent by which time it was too late to avoid an accident. The judge tried the issue of liability which he considered was whether a reasonable and prudent driver would have seen the respondent earlier than the appellant did so as to have been able to slow down or stop and avoid the accident. Paragraph 10 of the joint statement of the experts was to the effect that if the appellant had seen the respondent leaving the kerb he would have had time to take action to avoid the accident. In para.11 they stated that whether it was reasonable for the appellant to have looked away to the right as he did was a matter for the court. The judge found against the appellant on liability and assessed contributory negligence at 40%. After the judgment the appellant asked the judge to make an additional finding on the length of the period during which the respondent ought to have been seen by the appellant and treated as a hazard. The judge assessed that period as 2.5 seconds.
The appellant argued that the judge’s assessment that the respondent had been a hazard for 2.5 seconds was inconsistent with the other evidence and wrong; that the judge had failed to calculate how much time had been spent by the appellant in looking to the right which it had been reasonable for him to have done; and that in the absence of such a calculation he could not properly have made a finding that a failure to see the respondent in time was causative.
HELD: (1) The attack on the judge’s additional finding about the period of hazard was misconceived. That finding was merely supplementary and could not affect the decision he had already reached. The judge’s estimate of the relevant period in response to counsel’s request could only be a matter of impression. The judge’s decision was not based on that period, but on para.10 of the joint experts’ statement. Their view that if he had seen the respondent earlier an accident would have been avoided made a finding of negligence virtually inevitable. The issue for the judge was whether the appellant had kept a proper lookout. Given that he had not seen the respondent until he was 3 metres into the road and after the passenger in his taxi had seen him, the judge was entitled to reach his decision that the appellant was negligent. There had been no need for precision about the period of potential hazard.
(2) The argument that the judge had to add up the periods spent by the appellant looking to his right to see whether the time he had left to take avoiding action would have made any difference was artificial and unrealistic. A reasonably prudent driver would monitor the road ahead. All that was required was a glance. It had been reasonable to look to the right, but the appellant had not been entitled to disregard the road ahead. It had been inappropriate to look away for so long. The judge’s inference of negligence was entirely justified.
(3) The argument that without adding up the periods the judge could not properly make a finding on causation was also rejected. If the appellant had looked ahead before or during looking to the right, he would have seen the respondent earlier and the accident would have been avoided. That was in accordance with the expert and other evidence. The judge was clearly entitled to reach the conclusion he had on causation on the basis that the appellant should have looked ahead in time to see the respondent step off the kerb and into the bus lane at a time when the accident could still have been avoided.
Appeal dismissed
Law Lessons 4 Life 