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Road Traffic - From: 1960 To: 1969

This page lists 26 cases, and was prepared on 02 April 2018.


 
 Taylor v Mead; QBD 1961 - [1961] 1 WLR 435
 
Daley v Hargreaves [1961] 1 WLR 487
1961

Salmon J
Road Traffic
The court considered what it was for a vehicle to be intended or adapted for use as a motor vehicle. Held: The phrase did not refer to the intention as such of any particular purpose. Salmon J suggested that the word 'intended' might be paraphrased as 'suitable or apt'.
1 Citers


 
Regina v Spurge [1961] 2 QB 205
1961
CCA

Road Traffic, Crime
The driver claimed automatism as his defence. Held: The defendant "continued to drive when he was unfit to do so, and when he should have been aware of his unfitness."
1 Citers


 
Regina v McBride [1962] 2 QB 167; [1961] 3 All ER 6
1961


Road Traffic, Criminal Evidence
Evidence that a driver had been drinking was admissible when the driver faced a charge of dangerous driving.
1 Citers


 
Performance Cars Ltd v Abraham [1961] EWCA Civ 3; [1961] 3 All ER 413; [1961] 3 WLR 749; [1962] 1 QB 33
28 Jul 1961
CA
Lord Evershed MR, Harman LJ, Donovan LJ
Damages, Road Traffic
The plaintff sought damages after a collision, but the car had already been damaged in a previous accident, the repair of which would cover the second accident. Lord Evershed MR said: "In my judgment in the present case the defendant should be taken to have injured a motor-car that was already in certain respects (that is in respect of the need for respraying) injured; with the result that to the extent of that need or injury the damage claimed did not flow from the defendant's wrongdoing. It may no doubt be unfortunate for the plaintiffs that the collisions took place in the order in which they did."
Donovan LJ said: "The question as I see it is this: what extra burden in the matter of respraying was put upon the plaintiff company by the second collision? To my mind the answer must be: None, for the earlier collision had already imposed the burden of respraying upon them."
1 Citers

[ Bailii ]
 
Hosier v Goodall [1962] 2 QB 40; [1962] 1 All ER 30; [1962] WLR 157
1962
QBD

Road Traffic, Magistrates
A notice of intended prosecution was sent to the defendant in connection with an allegation of driving without due care and attention. When the matter came before the court, the defendant argued that the prosecution had failed to meet the requirements of section 241. Following a car acident the defendant had been unconscious in hospital. Attempts to serve him with papers at hospital had failed, and a notice was sent by registered letter to his home. His wife received it, but she did not give it to him despite his having recovered sufficiently to have read it. The prosecutor appealed against a finding that he had not been served. Held: The appeal succeeded. There had been good service since the wife was deemed to be authorised for this purpose.
1 Citers


 
Rathbone v Bundock [1962] 2 QB 260
1962


Road Traffic
In the context of road traffic regulation, unless extended to statutory instruments expressly, "enactment" meant an Act of Parliament.
1 Citers


 
Maddox v Storer [1963] 1 QB 451; [1962] 1 All ER 831; [1962] 2 WLR 958
1962
QBD
Lord Parker
Road Traffic
The defendant had a minibus carrying 11 people. The Act made it an offence to drive at over 30mph in a vehicle 'adapted' to carry more than seven people. Held: The phrase in Sch 1 to the Road Traffic Act 1960 was to be interpreted as follows: "constructed or adapted for use . . has been interpreted over and over again by the courts to mean 'originally constructed or altered later so as to make the vehicle fit for the particular use.'"
Road Traffic Act 1960

 
Burns v Currell [1963] 2 All ER 297; [1963] 2 QB 433
1963

Lord Parker CJ, Ashworth, Winn JJ
Road Traffic
The defendant was accused of offences related to the driving on a public road a mechanically propelled vehicle, a Go-Kart. Held: In fact it was not a motor vehicle within the statutory definition. The Court set out the test to be applied in deciding whether a particular vehicle was intended for use on roads for the purposes of the statutory definition.
Lord Parker CJ said: "Thus, in the ordinary case, it seems to me that there will be little difficulty in saying whether a particular vehicle is a motor vehicle or not. But to define exactly the meaning of the words 'intended or adapted' is by no means easy. For my part, I think that the expression 'intended', to take that word first, does not mean 'intended by the user of the vehicle either at the moment of the alleged offence or for the future'. I do not think that it means the intention of the manufacturer or the wholesaler or the retailer; and it may be, as Salmon J said in Daley v Hargreaves, that it is not referring to the intention as such of any particular purpose."
Salmon J. suggested that the word 'intended' might be paraphrased as 'suitable or apt'. It may be merely a difference of wording, but I prefer to make the test whether a reasonable person looking at the vehicle would say that one of its users would be a road user.
In deciding that question, the reasonable man would not, as I conceive, have to envisage what some man losing his senses would do with a vehicle; nor an isolated user or a user in an emergency. The real question is: Is some general use on the roads contemplated as one of the users? Approaching the matter in that way, at the end of the case the justices would have to ask themselves: has it been proved beyond a reasonable doubt that any reasonable person looking at the Go-Kart would say that one of its uses would be a use on the road?" and "I prefer to make the test whether a reasonable person looking at the vehicle would say that one of its users [uses] would be a road user. In deciding that question, the reasonable man would not, as I conceive, have to envisage what some man losing his senses would do with a vehicle; nor an isolated user or a user in an emergency. The real question is: Is some general use on the roads contemplated as one of the users?"
1 Cites

1 Citers


 
Regina v Waters (1963) 47 Cr App R 149
1963


Road Traffic
A public House car park may be a public place for the purposes of the road traffic legislation during opening hours when the public may be expected to have recourse to it.
1 Citers


 
Flower Freight Co Ltd v Hammond [1963] 1 QB 275
1963


Road Traffic

1 Citers


 
Power v Davidson (1964) 62 LGR 320
1964


Road Traffic
The appellant appealed his conviction for parking between a line of parking studs and a crossing. The studs were on a street running across the street where the crossing was set out and at right angles to the actual crossing. Held: The regulations required the studs to be on the same road as the crossing and approximately parallel to the crossing. The layout did not create the restriction.
Pedestrian Crossing Regulations 1954 6
1 Citers


 
Richley (Henderson) v Faull [1965] 1 WLR 1454; [1965] 3 All ER 109
1965

McKenna J
Road Traffic, Negligence
The court considered the burden of proof of negligence after damage was caused by a car skidding onto the wrong side of the road.
McKenna J said: "I, of course, agree that where the respondent’'s lorry strikes the plaintiff on the pavement or, as in the present case, moves onto the wrong side of the road into the plaintiff's path, there is a prima facie case of negligence, and that this case is not displaced merely by proof that the defendant’'s car skidded. It must be proved that the skid happened without the defendant’'s default. I respectfully disagree with the statement that the skid by itself is neutral. I think that the unexplained and violent skid is in itself evidence of negligence. It seems hardly consistent to hold that the skid which explained the presence of the respondent’'s lorry on the pavement or, as here, on the wrong side of the road, is neutral, but that the defendant must fail unless he proves that the neutral event happened without his default. Whether I am right in this or wrong, the conclusion is the same: the defendant fails if he does not prove that the skid which took him to the wrong place happened without his default."
1 Citers


 
Macleod v Hamilton [1965] SLT 305
1965


Road Traffic, Scotland
Unless an authority which makes a traffic control order complies with the requirements imposed on the making of such an order and the publication of the order is adequate, any offence which it purports to create cannot be effectively prosecuted.
1 Citers


 
Macleod v Hamilton 1965 SLT 305
1965

Lord Clyde, Lord Migdale
Scotland, Road Traffic
Lord Clyde said: "It was an integral part of the statutory scheme for a traffic regulation order that notice by means of traffic signs should be given to the public using the roads which were restricted so as to warn users of their obligations. Unless these traffic signs were there accordingly and the opportunity was thus afforded to the public to know what they could not legally do, no offence would be committed. It would, indeed, be anomalous and absurd were the position otherwise."
Lord Migdale said: "the order is not effective unless and until the council complies with Regulation 15(c) and erects road signs at the locus. Signs were erected but they were not the proper ones nor were they clear."
1 Citers


 
Mills v Cooper [1967] 2 QB 459
1967
QBD
Diplock LJ, Lord Parker CJ, Ashworth J
Crime, Road Traffic, Criminal Practice
Two sets of criminal proceedings were brought against the defendant for offences under section 127 of the Highways Act 1959 namely that of being a gypsy and, without lawful excuse, camping on a highway. The first proceedings were brought in respect of 22nd December 1965. Those proceedings were dismissed in February 1966 on the ground that the defendant was not a gypsy on that date, being not of the Romany race. Ten weeks later, in the second proceedings, a similar allegation was made in respect of 13th March 1966. The defendant argued that there was an issue estoppel as to his status; he was not a gypsy. The court was asked as to the meaning of the word "gypsy" in the 1959 Act, which made it an offence for a gypsy to pitch a booth or to camp on a highway. Held: There was no issue estoppel. Once it was recognised that being a gypsy was not an unalterable status but depended on the way of life which the person was leading at a particular time, it was clear that the incorrectness of the assertion as to the defendant's status made in the first proceedings was not inconsistent with the correctness of the same assertion made in the second proceedings. The word "gypsy" could not bear the dictionary meaning of a member of the Romany race, but should be given its colloquial or popular meaning of a person leading a nomadic life with no, or no fixed employment and with no fixed abode. "Looked at in that way, a man might well not be a gipsy on one date and yet be one on a later date" A gipsy is a person without fixed abode who leads a nomadic life, dwelling in tents or other shelters, or in caravans or other vehicles. If that meaning is adopted, it follows that being a gipsy is not an unalterable status. It cannot be said, 'once a gipsy always a gipsy'. By changing his way of life a modern Borrow may be a gipsy at one time and not a gipsy at another.
Magistrates, like any court, have a right in their discretion to decline to hear proceedings on the ground that they were oppressive and an abuse of the process of the court.
Lord Diplock said: "[The] doctrine [of estoppel] . . so far as it affects civil proceedings, may be stated thus: a party to civil proceedings is not entitled to make, as against the other party, an assertion, whether of fact or of the legal consequences of facts, the correctness of which is an essential element in his cause of action or defence . . in previous civil proceedings between the same parties or their predecessors in title and was found by a court of competent jurisdiction in such civil proceedings to be incorrect."
Highways Act 1959 127
1 Citers


 
James v Cavey [1967] 2 QB 676; [1967] 2 WLR 1239; [1967] 1 All ER 1048
1967
QBD
Winn LJ, Ashworth and Widgery JJ
Road Traffic
The council introduced regulations restricting parking at a site on alternate weeks between certain hours. The 'no parking' signes were covered over with an unrestricted parking sign when parking was permitted. The defendant parked and left his car at a time when the signs were covered, but was then given a ticket after the covers were removed when the restrictions came back into effect. He appealed his conviction. Held: The conviction was quashed.
Winn LJ said: "regulation 15, by sub-paragraph (c) . . [prescribed] that the authority should take forthwith
"all such steps as are reasonably practicable to cause to be erected on or near to the said roads traffic signs in such positions as the local authority may consider to be requisite" - and here come the operative words in my opinion - "for the purpose of securing that adequate information as to the effect of the order is given to persons using the said roads"
The authority should take all such steps as are reasonably practicable for the purpose of securing that adequate information is given to persons using the said roads.
The short answer in my view which requires that this appeal should be allowed is that the local authority here did not take such steps as they were required to take under that regulation. They did not take steps which clearly could have been taken and which clearly would have been practicable to cause adequate information to be given to persons using the road by the signs which they erected."
Traffic Regulation Orders (Procedure) (England and Wales) Regulations 1961
1 Cites

1 Citers



 
 Griffiths v Liverpool Corporation; CA 1967 - [1967] 1 QB 374

 
 Gurtner v Circuit; CA 1968 - [1968] 2 QB 587

 
 Windle v Dunning and Son Ltd; 1968 - [1968] 2 All ER 46
 
Bell v Ingham [1968] 2 All ER 333
1968
QBD
Ashworth J
Road Traffic
The plaintiff was charged with an attempting to commit an offence of taking and driving away a motor vehicle without the consent of the owner. The Justices fined him £10 and ordered that the particulars of the conviction should be endorsed on his licence. Held. There was no jurisdiction to endorse for an offence of attempt and that the endorsement should be removed. The Justices had said that endorsement of a licence was not a punishment. Ashworth J did not agree: "The Justices said that nowadays an endorsement is not a penalty. For my part I am inclined to think counsel for the appellant is right, that whatever may have been the position before the recent legislation, the presence of an endorsement on a licence now is something that any motor driver would seek to avoid, and as it comes as the result of an offence by him, it is in my judgment truly described as part of the penalty. In my judgment, therefore, the justices were wrong in ordering that this appellant's licence should be endorsed, and I would allow this appeal, and order the endorsement to be removed."
1 Citers


 
Randall v The Motor Insurers Bureau [1968] 1 WLR 1190
1968
QBD
Megaw J
Road Traffic, Personal Injury
A school sergeant attempted to stop a vehicle which had been fly-tipping on private school land from leaving the land by standing in front of it. When the lorry moved toward him, the driver being determined to leave, he was forced to jump to one side. The front wing of the lorry caught him as he did so, causing no substantial injury, but he was then trapped between the moving lorry as it left the private premises and the escarpment of a raised bank to the side of the entrance. He was pulled forward as the lorry passed him, eventually falling to the ground with his head and shoulders inside the boundary of the school property and his legs outstretched, although he did not remember in which direction. A rear wheel of the lorry passed over his leg, fracturing it. At the time the rear wheel passed over his leg the front wheels of the lorry were already well out onto the public road beyond and the driver had started to turn the lorry into his direction of travel. The only question was whether the bodily injury was caused by or arose out of the use of the lorry on a road. The statutory question was whether the injuries were caused by or arose out of the use of a vehicle on a road within sections 203(3)(a) and 257 of the Road Traffic Act 1960. Held: Megaw J said: "In my judgment the answer to that question on the facts of this case is 'yes'. I have no doubt that in common sense and in the ordinary use of language the lorry was being used on a road . . at the time when the plaintiff sustained the serious injury of which he complains. If anything turns on the precise time of the incident, which again as a matter of common sense cannot be divided into a series of separate incidents, the determining factor is the time when the wheel of the lorry ran over the plaintiff's leg. At that time the greater part of the lorry was on the road and the lorry as a whole was using the road. The fact that the rear part of the lorry, including the wheel which ran over the plaintiff's leg, was still just on private property does not, in my view, affect the conclusion that the lorry was then using the road. It was the use of the lorry on the road, the fact that it was being driven further onto the road in order to drive away along the road, which caused the injury. Certainly the injury arose out of the use of the lorry on the road. The fact that the plaintiff when he was injured was still, though only just, on private property and that the wheel which caused the injury was still just on private property, does not, to my mind, affect the conclusion. The plaintiff therefore succeeds in his claim."
Road Traffic Act 1960
1 Citers


 
Groome v Driscoll [1969] 3 All ER 1638
1969
QBD
Parker LCJ, Ashworth and Cantley JJ
Road Traffic
The defendant, prosecuted for a minor driving offence of driving without due care and attention, did not receive the information of intended prosecution within 14 days as the statute required. He appeal by case stated. Held: Schedule 4 to the Road Traffic Act 1962 expressly provided that the notice would be deemed to have been served, even if in fact it was not, provided it was sent by registered post or recorded delivery addressed to the last known address. In view of that the court was satisfied that there had been proper service.
Road Traffic Act 1962 Sch4
1 Cites

1 Citers


 
Ames v MacLeod 1969 JC 1
1969
OHCS

Road Traffic
The accused, who was alleged to have been driving a motor car, had been walking beside it as it ran down a slight incline, and had steered it by placing his hand on the wheel. The car had run out of petrol. Held: The question turned on whether the defendant was 'in a substantial sense controlling the movement and direction of the car,' and held that this test was satisfied.
1 Citers


 
Clarke v Winchurch [1969] 1 All ER 275; [1969] 1 WLR 69
1969
CA
Lord Justice Phillimore
Negligence, Road Traffic
A car driver, was pulling out across the front of a stationary bus in order to turn right down the road in the direction opposite to that in which the bus was facing. He collided with a moped which had overtaken the bus on its offside. The car was only about a yard beyond the offside of the bus at the time of the collision. Held. (majority) The driver was not negligent. Lord Justice Phillimore said: "the first defendant came out extremely slowly and extremely carefully. In effect he inched his way out beyond the line of the bus . . If you have a small vehicle like a bicycle or motorcycle, you are in the fortunate position of taking up so little roadspace that you can slide along in the offside . . but if you choose to do this it does seem to me to warrant a very, very high degree of care indeed because you are blinded to a great extent to what goes on on the lefthand side of the road. You must therefore continue to ride or drive in such a way that you can immediately deal with an emergency."

 
Pinner v Everett [1969] 1 WLR 1266; [1969] 3 All ER 257; (1969) 64 Cr App R 160
1969
HL
Lord Reid, Lord Morris
Litigation Practice, Road Traffic
The House was asked whether or not a person was "driving or attempting to drive" a motor vehicle when he had been stopped by the police in connection with the illumination of his rear number plate, and the driver got out of the car and started to talk to the police and they, smelling alcohol, required him to take a blood test which he refused to do. Held: Lord Reid said:"In determining the meaning of any word or phrase in a statute the first question to ask always is what is the natural or ordinary meaning of that word or phrase in its context in the statute? It is only when that meaning leads to some result which cannot reasonably be supposed to have been the intention of the legislature, that it is proper to look for some other possible meaning of the word or phrase. We have been warned again and again that it is wrong and dangerous to proceed by substituting some other words for the words of the statute." and "It asks me to choose between two phrases 'actually driving' and 'the driver, neither of which is to be found in the Act. It is in effect substituting 'the driver' for the statutory words 'person driving or attempting to drive'. The two are not the same. A person can often be properly called the driver although for quite a long time he has neither been driving nor attempting to drive."
Lord Morris said: "In my view, the words 'person driving' in . . at least cover and include someone who has been driving but who has temporarily interrupted his driving and is about to resume driving." and "Thus, if someone intended to park his car in the road outside his home he might drive to a place outside his house and there stop; just before and at that very instant he would be a 'person driving' and in general terms he could be described as 'the driver'. But if, having finished his journey, he stopped his engine and locked his car and went inside his home, he would then have ceased to be a 'person driving' although in general terms someone might still describe him as 'the driver'. Questions of fact and of degree may well arise."
Road Traffic Act 1968
1 Citers


 
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