Traffic To and From Side Streets : a Hint to Insurance Companies.
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If country driving has attendant dangers which include the dashing-out of vehicles from side roads and byways, Ihe comparable terrors of town and city traffic arc none the less real. The taxicabby has an unenviable notoriety attaching to him in this respect, but the average driver cif a horse-drawn van is by far the worst of all offenders. Insurance companies should now revise their rules for the mljustment of claims that arise from incidents of the kind, which are by no means uncommon: it is dearly ennecessary for them to continuo to pay the owners of the recklessly-driven vehicles, whether the latter be of the self-propelled or the animal-power types. IL is primafocie evidence of negligence, unless in altogether-exceptional circumstances, that any driver should have dashed into or across a main road at speed. His first duty is to reduce way to whatsoever rate has due relation to his ability to pull up in the distance for which he can see the road. It is futile to ask or to suggest that traffic units on the main road or street must speculatively slacken or wait as they approach each of the numerous small and unimportant intersections. A plea of the kind is not supportable—in equity, by common law or under
the reasonable construction of any statute; modern cnstom, most of all einee the advent of motor traffic, has alsomuch to say to a general settlement of the problem. We admit, of course, the risk that there may sometimes he disputes as to the relative importance of particular interseeting thoroughfares, but that neeessary qualification does not vitiate the principle for which we contend Owners will do well, we feel sure, to impress it upon their drivers that main-road traffic does and should take precedence, and that the onus of proof of care is more largely upon them if their vehicles are so driven as to emerge carelessly and quickly from a side or minor highway or byway. One special case is that of the driver who wantonly turns out from and across a near-side line of traffic, in order, say, to enter the gates of his own or a customer's premises on the off side of the road, without his first slackening pace and also holding out his arm • horizontally. There is need for more applications; notwithstanding the big demand to date, for copies of the C.M.U.A. traffic rules, and we hope to see them ordered and distributed in tens of thousands.