Divisional Court Cases
| DOI | 10.1177/002201834801200404 |
| Published date | 01 October 1948 |
| Date | 01 October 1948 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Divisional Court Cases
ELECTRIC TRAMCARS AS STAGE CARRIAGES
Chapman v. Kirke
Nodoubt practitioners whose work brings
them
into
.
contact
with road traffic offences appreciate
that
tramcars do
not
come within
the
purview of
the
Road
Traffic Acts, so
that
the
driver of such vehicle cannot be
charged with dangerous or careless driving. However,
resort is sometimes
had
to
the
Stage Carriages Act, 1832.
Although
many
prosecutions have no
doubt
been success-
fully maintained, there has been no authoritative pro-
nouncement as to whether
an
electric tramcar was a stage
carriage within
the
meaning of
the
above Act. This hiatus
has been filled
by
the
decision of
the
Divisional Court in
the
case whose title is cited above (1948, 2
A.E.R.
556).
This was
an
appeal
by
case
stated
from
the
Bradford
Stipendiary magistrate who
had
convicted
the
appellant
for a breach of sec. 48 of
the
Stage Carriages Act, 1832,
the
material terms of which are as follows
:-
"
If
the
driver or conductor or guard of any stage carriage
....
shall through intoxication or negligence or by wanton and furious
. driving or by or through any other misconduct endanger
the
safety
of any passenger or other person or shall injure or endanger
the
property of
the
owner or proprietor of such stage carriage or of
any
other person, every such person so offending shall forfeit £5."
The particular breach of this section with which
the
appellant was charged was
that
he
had
injured
by
negli-
gence
the
property of
the
owner of
the
tramcar which he
was driving. The only facts material to
the
case were
that
the
learned magistrate found
that
the
appellant's negligence
consisted in having failed to apply his brakes soon enough
to prevent
the
tramcar from colliding with alorry which
was ahead of
it
and
the
tramcar thereby sustained damage.
For
the
appellant two points were
taken:
(1)
That
as
the
definition of 'stage carriage' given in sec. 5 of
the
Stage
379
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