Arnot v Sprake & Anor

On an ordinary rural road, a bend, an unseen junction and a large agricultural vehicle do not, without more, create a duty to take wholly exceptional precautions. A driver must use reasonable care, but need not stop and place a warning triangle, sound the horn continuously, or flash lights merely because a vehicle may approach around a bend. A proposed precaution must also be shown to have been unreasonable to omit and causative of the accident. A route choice is not negligent without sufficient evidence that the alternative was safer. A motorcyclist approaching a blind bend must ride within the limits of visibility; approaching at 45 miles per hour in the circumstances was too fast.

The claimant was seriously injured when his motorcycle collided with a crop sprayer and trailer emerging from a junction on a bend in Countryman Lane. He sued the driver and his employer in negligence. The Wandsworth County Court found the defendants negligent, rejected contributory negligence, and entered judgment for the claimant with damages to be assessed.

The defendants appealed, challenging both the findings of negligence and the rejection of contributory negligence. The Court of Appeal considered whether the road and vehicle were sufficiently unusual to require special warnings, whether an alternative route should have been taken, and whether the claimant’s speed contributed to the collision.

1. Appeal allowed. The judgment for the claimant was set aside, the claim was dismissed, and the appeal was allowed with costs subject to detailed assessment. The interim payment was to be paid to the defendant. Leave to appeal was refused.
2. The Court of Appeal, per Lord Justice Kay, held that the trial judge had wrongly treated the bend and junction as exceptionally dangerous and the crop sprayer and trailer as an exceptional vehicle. They were ordinary features of rural roads. A prudent road user must anticipate that an unseen hazard, including agricultural machinery, may lie around a bend.
3. The driver’s familiarity with the road did not make it negligent to proceed without stopping, leaving the vehicle, walking down the road and placing a warning triangle. That proposed precaution was unrealistic in the circumstances. Nor was there a proper basis for finding negligence from failure to sound the horn, use flashing lights, or flash the headlights. The evidence did not establish that those measures would have materially alerted the claimant or prevented the collision.
4. The alternative-route allegation was not properly supported by the evidence. The route taken was the obvious route, other routes were longer, and none was shown to be safer. The case should not be remitted for a retrial, both because the evidence had not been called at trial without explanation and because the alternative-route case could not reasonably succeed.
5. Lord Justice Pill agreed with the reasoning and added that the claimant should have ridden within the limits of his visibility. His approach at 45 miles per hour was too fast for the blind bend and was the sole cause of the accident. Lord Justice Tuckey agreed with the first judgment.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division) [2001] EWCA Civ 341: allowed the defendants’ appeal from the Wandsworth County Court, set aside the judgment for the claimant, dismissed the claim, and refused leave to appeal.
• Wandsworth County Court: His Honour Judge Winstanley found the defendants negligent, rejected contributory negligence, and entered judgment for the claimant with damages to be assessed.