F was asked to lend L a car. F knew L was disqualified, but agreed provided L found an insured driver with a full valid driving licence. F did not know who L would ask or that he in fact asked R to drive; R was employed as delivery driver and the defendant neither knew or met him. L did not ask R if he was insured to drive the defendant’s car, both L and R assuming without discussion that R would be insured by virtue of his employment as a delivery driver. R drove the defendant’s car, was uninsured to drive it and was involved in a road traffic accident with another car as a result of which a passenger in the other car lost a leg.
Held: Distinguishing Newbury v Davis: ‘There was no communication of any kind between the owner and the driver. The defendant was unaware who [L] was going to ask to drive the vehicle and the defendant simply could not and did not know whether his so-called conditional permission would be passed on to that person. Thus it may be that [R] was wholly unaware of the qualified permission. Moreover he personally had not been made subject by the defendant. So far as the defendant knew, [R] could have been disqualified from driving and was uninsurable. It is quite ludicrous, I think, therefore to suppose that a so-called conditional permission was granted to him. To begin to establish such an unusual permission, a conditional one that is, the owner would have at least to have been found to have given it directly to the would-be driver of his vehicle, regardless as to whether he has also given it to some other person, a would-be passenger in the vehicle, for instance. For those reasons I would allow this appeal and send the case back to the justices with a direction to convict.’
Judges:
Watkins LJ
Citations:
[1992] RTR 93
Citing:
Distinguished – Newbury v Davis QBD 1974
The owner of a vehicle agreed to lend it to someone else on condition that that person insured against third party risks. In the owner’s absence, that person drove the car on a road without insurance.
Held: The appeal against conviction was . .
Cited by:
Cited – Philip Owen Lloyd-Wolper v Robert Moore; National Insurance Guarantee Corporation Plc, Charles Moore CA 22-Jun-2004
The first defendant drove a car belonging to his father and insured by his father. The father consented to the driving but under a mistaken belief that his son was licensed. The claimant was injured by the defendant in a road traffic accident.
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Road Traffic
Updated: 30 April 2022; Ref: scu.199928