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Motorist at Fault For Collision With Scooter During U-Turn

Written by admin on . Posted in ICBC Liability (fault) Cases.

Reasons for judgement were released today addressing fault for a collision involving a vehicle conducting a U-turn.
In today’s case (Longford v. Tempesta) the Plaintiff was operating a scooter and was travelling behind the Defendant’s vehicle.  The Defendant “put on his brakes aggressively” and the Plaintiff then stopped.  The Defendant then “went to the right parking lane and stopped, aggressively applying his brakes again, and then hesitated.“.  The Plaintiff then proceeded to pass the Defendant who then commenced a U-turn and the vehicles collided.
In finding the Defendant 100% responsible Madam Justice Hyslop provided the following reasons:

[34]        I find that the plaintiff could not have anticipated that the defendant, after briefly stopping, would then turn in front of her. Nor do I find that she had enough time to observe the defendant’s actions and avoid the accident.

[35]        The plaintiff did not state that the defendant was driving erratically when he stopped aggressively in front of her and when he parked. The defendant in his written argument, states:

14.       The Plaintiff in her statement seems to have assumed that the Defendant had missed his turn, was driving erratically and ought to have anticipated some other erratic move from the Defendant and driven accordingly.

15.       Further, the physical evidence of where the collision took place is more consistent with the Defendant’s version of events than the Plaintiff’s. Impact occurred very near the centre of the road when the Defendant’s vehicle had almost left the west bound lane. This would mean for the Plaintiff’s version to be correct the Defendant would had to have started from a complete stop accelerated through a turn and almost completed it before the Plaintiff arrived at the impact site.

[36]        This does not coincide with the defendant’s evidence that he was three quarters of the way in his driveway, having crossed the eastbound lane.

[37]        In Rai v. Fowler, 2007 BCSC 1678, Madam Justice Holmes stated:

[34]      In Tucker (Public Trustee of) v. Asleson (1993), 78 B.C.L.R. (2d) 173 (C.A.) at 195-6, Madam Justice Southin noted that drivers are entitled to assume that other drivers will obey the rules of the road, and are required to anticipate, in other drivers, “only those follies which according to the teachings of experience commonly occur”. By implication, and as explained in Walker v. Brownlee, [1952] 2 D.L.R. 450 at 461 from which Southin J.A. quoted, a driver may bear liability if he or she became aware of another driver’s disregard of the law, or by the exercise of reasonable care should have become aware, and unreasonably failed to avoid the accident that followed from that disregard.

[38]        When the defendant stopped aggressively in front of the plaintiff, she slowed down and was able to stop. I find there was no erratic driving on the part of the defendant such that she could anticipate that the defendant would perform a U-turn in front of her.

[39]        I conclude that the defendant stopped as he realized that he had overshot the driveway to his workplace. I find he then went to the right, stopped again as to park, intending to go into the driveway and, in doing so, crossed the path of the plaintiff on her scooter. At no time did the defendant observe the scooter and he should have. I find that the plaintiff has met the burden of proof and that the defendant was negligent when he turned from where he was parked and into the path of the plaintiff driving her scooter. The defendant is 100% responsible for the accident. The defendant’s actions were negligent.

Longford v. Tempesta, Madam Justice Hyslop, U-Turn

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