Grace v Tanner

Missing a turning on a roundabout is not, without more, negligent. A driver who remains in the same lane and avoids a sudden or violent manoeuvre may still owe a duty to anticipate the danger created for traffic using an exit that the driver has passed. Reasonable care requires awareness that vehicles in an outside lane may be intending to take that exit. A motorcyclist must also keep a proper lookout, control speed and avoid unsafe assumptions about another vehicle’s intended course. Where both road users make errors that materially contribute to a collision, responsibility may be apportioned equally after considering their respective breaches and causative effect.

The appeal concerned a collision between a motorcycle and a car on a dual-carriageway roundabout. The car driver entered in the inside lane, passed the exit leading to the relevant carriageway and continued around the roundabout after realising too late that she had missed it. The motorcyclist, travelling in the outside lane, assumed that the car would take that exit and collided with it.

Her Honour Judge Coates found the car driver blameless and dismissed the claim, while attributing the accident to the motorcyclist’s speed, lookout and assumption. The central issue on appeal was whether the car driver’s failure to consider traffic in the outside lane was also negligent and, if so, how responsibility should be divided.

The appeal was allowed. Responsibility for the collision was apportioned equally between the parties, and the matter was returned to the county court.

1. Lane use on roundabouts. Lord Justice Schiemann rejected the submission that the Highway Code prevented traffic from proceeding in columns in both lanes where the outside lane was being used for the intended manoeuvre. The motorcyclist was not necessarily in the wrong lane merely because the left-hand lane was not permanently blocked.
2. Missing the exit. Lord Justice Schiemann agreed that it was not negligent merely to miss a turning. Nor would negligence arise from the car driver’s decision to remain in her lane rather than make a sudden and violent movement across the roundabout.
3. Continuing duty of care. The car driver nevertheless became negligent when, after passing the previous exit and seeing the dual-carriageway exit ahead, she failed to bear in mind that traffic might be travelling in the outside lane intending to leave by that exit. Her confusion about the correct route did not remove the need to consider the danger presented to other road users. Lord Justice Judge agreed, observing that the car’s position and movement would have led following traffic reasonably to believe that it would take the dual-carriageway exit.
4. Contributory responsibility. The motorcyclist was also negligent, as the first-instance findings concerning speed, lookout and reliance on an unsafe assumption were accepted. The two unintentional errors materially contributed to the collision, making an equal division of responsibility appropriate.

The defendant was ordered to pay 75 per cent of the claimant’s first-instance costs and the claimant’s costs of the appeal, subject to assessment if not agreed.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Allowed the appeal from the judgment of Her Honour Judge Coates in the High Court Administrative Court, ordered equal apportionment of responsibility and directed that the matter return to the county court.