Stark v Lyddon

A motorist emerging from a minor road must take extreme care, look properly in both directions and allow for motorcycles that may be approaching faster than expected. Excessive speed by the approaching motorcyclist does not, by itself, remove the emerging motorist’s duty or place the accident outside its scope where proper observation would have avoided the collision. Apportionment requires a fact-sensitive assessment of blameworthiness and causative potency. Where a motorcyclist is travelling at more than twice the speed limit and deliberately riding dangerously, blameworthiness may outweigh the usual causative-potency disparity associated with a collision involving a motorcycle. Liability was apportioned 70 per cent to the motorcyclist and 30 per cent to the emerging driver.

The claimant, riding a motorcycle, collided with the defendant’s car as she turned right from a car park across a major road. The defendant failed to stop at the give-way lines, failed to look again to her right and did not see the motorcycle before impact. The claimant was travelling at approximately 70 mph in a 30 mph limit and was found to have been riding in a manner amounting to racing.

The trial concerned preliminary issues of liability and contributory negligence. The central issues were whether the claimant’s excessive speed relieved the defendant of liability, and how responsibility should be apportioned by reference to blameworthiness and causative potency.

1. Liability. Both parties were negligent. The defendant failed to look properly before commencing her right turn. She first looked when her car was still about 2 metres from the give-way lines, had a restricted view and did not look again. Had she looked as she approached the lines, she would have seen the motorcycle. Her failure was particularly serious because she was crossing a busy major road and a hatched area bounded by double white lines. She also failed to indicate.
2. The defendant could not avoid liability by arguing that the claimant’s speed was so excessive that he was outside the scope of the duty. The relevant Highway Code rules required particular care when emerging, looking in both directions and allowing for motorcycles which may be approaching faster than expected. The collision was of the kind those rules were intended to prevent. Proper observation would have avoided it.
3. Apportionment. Apportionment is an intensely fact-sensitive exercise. The relevant considerations are the parties’ blameworthiness and the causative potency of their negligence. Earlier decisions provide limited assistance.
4. The defendant’s failure to look was serious. The claimant’s conduct was more blameworthy: he was travelling at about 70 mph, more than twice the speed limit, and was deliberately riding in a dangerous and irresponsible manner. Although a vehicle emerging from a side road may ordinarily have greater causative potency because of the risk of grave injury to an approaching motorcyclist, that disparity diminishes as the motorcyclist’s speed becomes grossly excessive. In these circumstances blameworthiness was the dominant consideration.
5. The court preferred the approach in Jones v Lawton [2013] EWHC 4109 (QB) concerning causative potency, rather than the parity approach discussed in Woodham v JM Turner [2012] EWCA Civ 375, although the difference was marginal on the facts.
6. Liability was apportioned 70 per cent to the claimant and 30 per cent to the defendant.