Afouzar v First Centrewest Buses Ltd

A driver is judged by the standard of the reasonably competent driver, not by an ideal standard reconstructed with hindsight. Accident-reconstruction calculations must assist, rather than replace, the court’s assessment of the primary evidence and the circumstances as they appeared at the time. A driver approaching an amber signal is not necessarily negligent for proceeding, particularly where stopping would require harsh braking, the vehicle carries passengers, and the vehicle is within the relevant dilemma zone. A bus driver must take reasonable care for passengers and other road users, but is not required to perform braking or steering manoeuvres creating a real risk of serious injury. Causative potency may affect apportionment only after negligence by both parties has been established.

The claimant sought damages for personal injury sustained when he ran across a signal-controlled junction and was struck by the defendant’s double-decker bus. Liability was tried separately from causation and quantum.

The claimant accepted that he had crossed against a red pedestrian signal, failed to see the bus and was contributorily negligent, but alleged that the driver was primarily negligent. The allegations concerned speed, proceeding through an amber signal, failure to observe the claimant and lack of alertness. The central issues were whether the driver should have stopped or taken earlier evasive action, and whether any such breach caused the collision.

1. Claim dismissed. The claimant was solely responsible for the accident. If that conclusion were wrong, he would have been assessed as 75% contributorily negligent.
2. The court applied the standard of the reasonably competent driver. It warned against evaluating negligence through fine calculations made with hindsight or treating expert reconstruction as a fixed mathematical framework. The primary factual evidence and the circumstances confronting the driver in real time remained central: Ahanonu v South East London and Kent Bus Company [2008] EWCA Civ 274, Stewart v Glaze [2009] EWHC 704 (QB) and Sam v Atkins [2005] EWCA 1452.
3. The driver had seen the amber signal and decided to proceed. He was less than 40 metres from the stop line, driving a double-decker bus carrying passengers, with a possible risk of passengers standing or moving and vehicles behind. Stopping required firm braking, although not emergency braking. In those circumstances, proceeding through the amber signal was not negligent.
4. The driver should have become aware of the claimant when it became apparent that he would not stop at the kerb. By then, however, there was insufficient distance to stop safely. Emergency braking or more violent swerving would have created a real risk of injury to passengers and other road users, and it was not established on the balance of probabilities that either course would have avoided the collision.
5. The claimant ran into the bus’s path against the pedestrian signal, without looking effectively towards approaching traffic. The court declined to draw an adverse inference from his failure to give evidence, applying the principles in Wisniewski v Central Manchester Health Authority [1998] P.I.Q.R. P324.
6. Greater causative potency may justify a heavier responsibility being placed on a bus driver, but only after some negligence by that driver has been established. The court considered Satnam Rehill v Rider Holdings Limited [2012] EWCA Civ 628, Belka v Prosperini [2011] EWCA Civ 623 and Lightfoot v Go-Ahead Group PLC [2011] EWHC 89 (QB). The apportionment approach in Eagle v Chambers [2003] EWCA Civ 1107 was relevant only as an alternative.