Cutter v Eagle Star Insurance Co Ltd

For compulsory third-party motor insurance, a road may include a roadway within an off-street car park. The relevant question is whether the car park contains a way used for the passage of vehicles, assessed by its layout, physical characteristics and use. It need not provide a route between public roads.

Where the public has access, regularly used carriageways and parking spaces into which vehicles drive may fall within the definition in the Road Traffic Act 1988. A vehicle’s use for parking does not prevent the use being use on a road. An injury arising from that use is within the compulsory insurance requirement, and the insurer must satisfy the resulting judgment.

The appellant was injured while sitting in a car parked in a marked bay in a multi-storey public car park. A leaking lighter-fuel aerosol ignited when the driver lit a cigarette. The appellant obtained judgment against the driver, who was insured by the respondent but failed to notify the insurer.

The appellant sought to recover the judgment from the respondent under sections 149 and 151 of the Road Traffic Act 1988. The insurer accepted that the injury arose from use of the car but argued that the car was not being used on a road within section 192. Deputy Judge Kee dismissed the claim, holding that the car park was not a road. The appellant appealed, and the respondent cross-noticed the issue whether parking bays could form part of a road.

Lord Justice Beldam delivered the judgment. Lord Justice Morritt and Sir John Balcombe agreed.

1. Statutory inquiry. Section 192 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 raises two distinct questions: whether the place is a road and, if so, whether the public has access to it. Once the facts are determined or undisputed, whether they satisfy the statutory definition is a question of law.
2. Meaning of road. The definition includes roads that are not highways. The historical use of roadway in the Motor Car Act 1903 supports construing road as including a way used for the passage of vehicles. The statutory purpose of protecting the public and securing compensation supports a broad construction.
3. Car parks. The inquiry should focus on whether there is a roadway within the car park, rather than whether the car park as a whole is a road. Layout, physical characteristics, traffic signs, carriageway markings and regular use are relevant. A route between two public roads is not required. The reasoning in Griffin v Squires was treated as placing too much emphasis on the ordinary description of a car park, while the observation that a car park could not be a road was identified as obiter. Oxford v Austin was explained as recognising the relevance of a definable way and public access, without making a through route determinative.
4. Parking spaces. Where vehicles regularly drive over and into parking spaces from a roadway, the spaces form an integral part of the roadway. The short distance travelled while entering or reversing from a space is immaterial.
5. Application and result. The Great Hall car park contained marked and signposted ways used by members of the public to reach parking spaces. The parking areas were therefore within the statutory definition of road. The injury arose from use of the vehicle on a road, engaging section 145(3)(a), and the respondent was required by section 151 to satisfy the judgment. The appeal was allowed, the cross-appeal dismissed, and costs were awarded here and below.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division). Allowed the appeal, dismissed the cross-appeal, awarded costs here and below, and refused leave to appeal to the House of Lords.
2. Tunbridge Wells County Court. Deputy Judge Kee dismissed the appellant’s claim, holding that the multi-storey car park was not a road.