Review: The Law of Collisions on Land
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X3000300120 |
| Date | 01 January 1930 |
| Published date | 01 January 1930 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEWS
159
THE
LAW
OF
COLLISIONS
ON
LAND.
By His Honour
JUDGE
R. O.
ROBERTS
and A. D.
GIBB.
znd
ed. 1929. (Sweet &Maxwell;
Stevens &Sons.)
IN this work, originally published in 1925 and now revised and in part
re-written by
Mr.
Gibb, the authors have set themselves the task of stating
and explaining the law of negligence as applied to collisions and accidents
on railways and on the highway.
It
would be difficult to find any legal
text-book with an appeal to so wide and varied a public as this.
The
chapters
dealing with Collisions on the Highway (Chapter IV) and Criminal Liability
(Chapter
VII)
will be of special interest and assistance to police officers.
The
authors have followed the plan, frequently adopted in modern legal
text-books, of summarising the law in a series of general propositions to which
are appended ilIustrative examples based on judicial decisions.
This
plan
has its risks as well as its advantages. Every summary of the law is liable
to be exposed to the criticism that it is too exhaustive or not exhaustive
enough or that it requires some important qualification;
but
the true test
of the success of the method is not the extent to which it is open to such
criticisms
but
the extent to which it provides in intelligible language a
reasonably accurate and helpful statement of the law.
This
test has, we
think, been fulfilled in the
Law
of
Collisionson Land.
Probably the most debatable branch of the law on this subject is the
doctrine of ' contributory negligence.'
The
authors have naturally found
themselves unable to clear the law of what, to the layman at any rate, are
confusing inconsistencies and arbitrary distinctions.
The
title'
contributory
negligence' is, as explained in a note dealing with this matter on p. 16,
misleading and unfortunate; and we agree with the authors in thinking
that when a road accident has happened, e.g. two motor-cars collide or a
motor-car knocks down a foot passenger, it is
'not
who contributed
to the accident,
but
who effectively caused it, that is of importance.'
The
real difficulty is to distil from decided cases any clear principle showing how
the law determines this question as between two persons both of whom are to
some extent to blame. One sees almost every day on the road instances of
what may be termed potential accidents; that is to say, where A, the driver of a
motor-car, by foresight and care
just
avoids a crash with another car driven with
obvious negligence by B. What would be the legal position if A had failed to
use due care to avoid a crash, though having the opportunity of doing so?
The
answer suggested by the notes to Article 8 in the present work would appear
to be that B could recover damages from A on the ground that it was A's
negligence which was the ultimate and effective cause of the collision.
The
authors are on safer or, at any rate, less debatable ground, in dealing with
the question of contributory negligence in the very useful chapter on criminal
liability.
It
is clearly established law that (as stated in Article 4 on p. 195)
if,
on a charge of manslaughter, it is proved that the prisoner's negligence
wholly or in part caused the death, it is no excuse to say that the deceased
himself was also negligent.
We have no hesitation in commending this work to the notice of all, in-
cluding police officers concerned in traffic control, who wish to improve
their understanding of the complexities of the law of England on the subject
of negligence and its consequences on the highway. We may add that the
authors have drawn freely upon judicial decisions in Scotland, so that, on
many of the points discussed, the reader may be able to see what principles
are common to both systems of law.
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