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Tag: Section 156 BC Motor Vehicle Act

Motorist Fully At Fault For Collision Following U-Turn Behind Reversing Vehicle

Written by admin on . Posted in ICBC Liability (fault) Cases, Uncategorized. 104 Comments on Motorist Fully At Fault For Collision Following U-Turn Behind Reversing Vehicle

Reasons for judgement were released this week by the BC Supreme Court, New Westminster Registry, addressing fault for a collision involving a Defendant who u-turned into a parking spot behind a backing up vehicle.
In this week’s case (Ferguson v. Yang) the Plaintiff stopped along the curb of 8th Street in New Westminster to drop his daughter off for school.  There was a gap behind him with a white van parked behind him.  The Defendant, who was approaching from the opposite direction made a u-turn and pulled into the gap.  At the same time the Plaintiff was backing up and a collision occurred.

Although there was a dispute as to how the collision occurred the Court found the above scenario the likely one as the Defendant’s evidence was “fraught with inconsistencies and obvious exaggerations“.  In finding the Plaintiff faultless for the collision Mr. Justice Weatherill provided the following reasons:
41]         In my view, the u-turn performed by the defendant in an attempt to secure a parking spot across the street in a school zone where parents were busy dropping their children off for school was a maneuver fraught with danger.  Moreover, I am satisfied that the plaintiff’s backup lights were illuminated, that the defendant ought to have seen them and that he ought to have anticipated the plaintiff’s vehicle was in the process of reversing into the space the defendant was attempting to move into.  Captain MacPherson saw these backup lights.  Had the defendant been keeping a proper look out, he would have seen them as well.
[42]         The defendant has failed to satisfy me that the plaintiff was contributory negligent in any way.  
[43]         The law does not require perfection on the part of the plaintiff to guard himself against every conceivable eventuality.  He must only guard himself against those eventualities that a reasonable person ought to have foreseen, within the ordinary range of human experience.  The plaintiff was entitled to proceed on the assumption that all other vehicles would do what is there duty, namely observing the rules of traffic: Pacheco (Guardian ad Litem of) v. Robinson (1993), 75 B.C.L.R. (2d) 273 (C.A.) at para. 11; Dechev v. Judas, 2004 BCSC 1564 at para. 22.
[44]         The plaintiff checked the area around his vehicle by looking in his side and rear view mirrors and by looking over his right shoulder.  He did all that he ought to have done.  A reasonably prudent driver should not be expected to anticipate that while in the course of backing up, another vehicle will perform an aggressive and illegal u-turn from the other side of the street in an attempt to occupy the space behind him.
[45]         The plaintiff had no warning of the impending collision.  I do not believe the defendant’s evidence that he was stopped and that he honked his horn prior to the collision.
[46]         In Carson v. Henyecz, 2012 BCSC 314, Madam Justice Hyslop stated at para. 99
            The duty imposed on a reversing driver is not just when the driver starts to reverse, but throughout the entire reversing procedure and to its completion.  The object is to be aware as reasonably possible to what is behind the driver and in the driver’s path while in reverse.
I agree with those comments.  I find that, in the circumstances here, the plaintiff conducted himself appropriately and was as aware as reasonably possible to what a reasonable driver should have anticipated would be in his path while reversing his vehicle.  He could not have reasonably anticipated that the defendant would do what he did.  
 

Driver Found 100% Liable for Accident Caused During Careless U-Turn

Written by admin on . Posted in ICBC Liability (fault) Cases, Uncategorized. 133 Comments on Driver Found 100133 Liable for Accident Caused During Careless U-Turn


Reasons for judgement were released today by Mr. Justice Smith of the BC Supreme Court considering the issue of fault in a collision between a pick-up truck and a motorcycle.
In today’s case (Dhah v. Harris) the Plaintiff was driving his motorcycle northbound on River Road in Delta, BC.  As he was coming into the second turn of an ‘s-curve’ a pick up truck was making a U-Turn from the Southbound lane into the Northbound lane.  Approaching this truck the motorcyclist hit his brakes ‘pretty hard’, dropped his bike and then slid into the side of the pickup truck.
The driver of the pick up truck did not see the Plaintiff and only realized he was there upon impact.  Similarly the motorcyclist did not appreciate that the pick up truck was there until it was too late to avoid the collision.  There was no evidence that the motorcyclist was speeding.
Both driver’s claimed the other was at fault.  After a 3 day trial Mr. Justice Smith found the pick-up truck driver 100% at fault.  In coming to this conclusion he provided the following summary and application of the law relating to U-Turn collisions:

[22] I find it highly unlikely that the defendant was moving at the extremely slow speed that that would imply. I find it more likely that the defendant was focussed on the tightness of the turn and the need to avoid the ditch across the road and that he failed to pay sufficient attention to situation to his right. Either he allowed more time than he now recalls to elapse between looking right and beginning his turn or he simply failed to notice the plaintiff who was there to be seen.

[23] Even if the defendant was turning at an extremely slow speed and the plaintiff was not there to be seen when the defendant began his turn, the plaintiff obviously would have come into view at some point before the collision. On the defendant’s own evidence, he did not look to his right again before he crossed the double solid centre line.

[24] It is a matter of common knowledge that roads are typically marked with a double solid line at locations where drivers will have reduced visibility of the road ahead. Sections 155 (1)(a) and 156 of the Motor Vehicle Act, R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 318, read as follows:

155  (1) Despite anything in this Part, if a highway is marked with

(a) a solid double line, the driver of a vehicle must drive it to the right of the line only,

…

156  If the driver of a vehicle is causing the vehicle to enter or leave a highway and the driver has ascertained that he or she might do so with safety and does so without unreasonably affecting the travel of another vehicle, the provisions of sections 151 and 155 are suspended with respect to the driver while the vehicle is entering or leaving the highway.

[25] Counsel for the defendant argues that the defendant reasonably concluded that he could safely enter the roadway and was leaving enough distance for oncoming vehicles to adjust to his presence. He argues that the effect of s. 156, in those circumstances, is that once the defendant entered the roadway, other drivers including the plaintiff were required to “accommodate” his position. In effect, counsel argues that if the defendant determined on reasonable grounds that he could safely cross the centre line, he acquired the right of way from the moment he entered the roadway.

[26] I cannot accept that submission. Section 155(1)(a), standing alone, contains an outright prohibition against crossing a double solid line. Section 156 does no more than provide limited exceptions to that absolute prohibition. It does not, in my view, diminish the duty to proceed with caution and it does not remove the right of way from another driver who is approaching in his or her proper lane.

[27] In any event, the question of whether or not the defendant was in violation of the statutory provision is not determinative. The question is whether the defendant kept a proper lookout and took appropriate care in the circumstances:  Dickie Estate v. Dickie and De Sousa (1991), 5 B.C.A.C. 37 (C.A.).

[28] In Dickie, the plaintiff was in the process of making a u-turn across a double solid line when he was struck by the defendant who was approaching at an excessively high speed. The Court of Appeal said at para. 12:

[The plaintiff] was engaging in a manoeuvre that was fraught with danger. He placed himself and the oncoming drivers in a position of risk. That being so, in my opinion, the law required of him a very high degree of care which would manifest itself in a sharp lookout before he crossed over the solid double line into the northbound lanes on the causeway. There was nothing to prohibit Dickie from seeing the oncoming De Sousa vehicle before his vehicle entered the northbound lanes of travel.

[29] I find that the defendant in this case was similarly “engaging in a manoeuvre that was fraught with danger”. He was making a left turn across a double solid line at a point where there was no intersection or driveway—at a point where oncoming drivers would have no reason to anticipate vehicles entering the roadway. He knew there was a curve to his right and knew or ought to have known that oncoming drivers might have limited visibility. The location and the nature of his manoeuvre required him to pay particular attention to the ditch across the road and I have found that he did so at the expense of being attentive to oncoming traffic.

[30] I also note that the Court in Dickie referred to the need for a sharp lookout before the driver crossed the centre line and before he entered the northbound lanes. In the circumstances of this case, it was not sufficient for the defendant to form an opinion about the safety of his manoeuvre before he entered the roadway. He says that he looked right at that point, but, in my view, his duty to keep a sharp lookout continued beyond that. He gave no evidence of having looked again before crossing the centre line; in my view, reasonable prudence required that he should have done so.

[31] Therefore, I find that the collision at issue was caused by the negligence of the defendant. The question then becomes whether there was any contributory negligence on the part of the plaintiff.

Mr. Justice Smith went on to give reasons explaining why he found the Plaintiff faultless for this crash holding that “the Plaintiff was entitled to proceed on the assumption that all other vehicles will do what it is their duty to do, namely observe the rules regulating traffic”.  Paragraphs 32-37 of the reasons for judgement are worth reviewing for the Court’s full discussion of why this Plaintiff was faultless.