Side-slip and Skidding.
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Last week's decisions of the Court of Appeal (King's 3ench Division), by which, as reported already in this ournal, two leading cases were decided against an omnibus :ompany, have added a serious factor to the definite number of contingent liabilities which must be accepted by proaletors of motorbuses. We might point out, incidentally, hat side-slip is a particular case of skidding. The latter vord implies a sliding as distinct from any rotatory !notion if the wheels, but the former involves the function of moveBent of the whole vehicle round an imaginary and shifting .entre within or external to itself. It has now been decided, ubject to the result of any appeal which may be carried to higher court, that the rutting into service of a motorbus vhen " skidding " conditions prevail constitutes a legal misance. The Lord Chief Justice's words are " As it is a veil-known fact that under certain circumstances motor'uses are liable to skid, and that when they do so it is not Kossible to control them, the defendant company is liable or placing a nuisance on the highway, and for negligently ising the highway." It cannot honestly be denied that this adverse judgment is .ne of the gravest importance. We do not, on the other :and, support any alarmist view of the situation, for it is pen to question whether it will in the end be much more osdy to pay, pay, pay claimants, or to fight, fight, fight s in the past! Litigation is costly, not only in pounds, hillings and pence, but in the absorption of attention :Ind nergy which might usefully be employed reproductively. Ve are, of course, unable to enter at length into detail of he two cases which have recently come up, since one is cut back to the Bloomsbury County Court for a new trial, nd the other may yet result in an appeal. This much. owever, we may write : that improved driving has greatly educed the number of accidents, as compared with cmly one ear ago, and that borough councillors and their engineers the Metropolis are slowly bringing their surfaces into line with modern requirements. These changes—in distribution of cross fall, in methods and times of sanding, in frequency of the cleansing away of " slime " due to horses, and in other respects—will not, unfortunately, reach their culmination for many years; not, in fact, until motor traffic preponderates in the ratio of 9 to I. They are already, however, asserting themselves in the areas where an intelligent anticipation of events is exhibited by those who are responsible for the construction, maintenance, and cleansing of the highways, and it is not going too far to state that these present-day oases in a wilderness of obstinacy and oldtime systems may rapidly be transformed into concrete evidences of misfeasance in neighbouring areas. Payment outright of side-slip and other skidding claims will not deter motorbus progress, though it may temporarily give rise to increased payments under the heads of insurance and compensation, but it is.clearly in the hands of the companies to fortify themselves with a reply to the dictum that " it is not possible to control them " (vide supra), by the fitting of an effective anti-side-slip device. Several practicable appliances are available, of which we may particularly name that of Mr. S. W. Newcomb.