Jacqueline Colizzi v Adam Coulson & Anor

A driver is judged by the standard of the reasonably careful driver, armed with common sense and experience, in the actual circumstances of the collision. The duty requires reasonable precautions where a real risk of danger would have been apparent, but does not impose a counsel of perfection or require extraordinary precautions against a mere possibility.

A claimant must prove breach and causation on the balance of probabilities. Where liability depends on an uncertain account of a pedestrian’s position, pause, visibility and reaction time, the court should avoid unwarranted precision. Accident-reconstruction calculations cannot replace findings supported by reliable evidence. A claim based on a hypothetical reduction in impact speed fails where the alternative collision mechanism and resulting injuries can be established only by speculation.

The claimant, a protected party, brought a negligence claim arising from a 2015 road traffic collision in which she suffered catastrophic brain injuries after being struck by the first defendant’s car. The second defendant was the insurer and took no direct part.

The trial concerned preliminary liability and causation. The claimant alleged that the driver should have seen her crossing through stationary traffic, taken avoiding action, or reduced the severity of the collision. The defendants denied negligence and alleged that the claimant caused the accident or contributed to it. The central issues were whether she paused where she could have been seen, whether the driver had time to react, and whether a slower collision would probably have avoided or reduced her injuries.

1. Claim dismissed. The driver was not negligent. The claimant was entirely responsible for the accident. The issue of contributory negligence therefore did not arise.
2. The applicable standard was that of the reasonably careful and competent driver, assessed in the circumstances of the actual collision. It did not require an ideal driver, extraordinary precautions, or an assessment distorted by hindsight. The driver was driving below the speed limit, keeping a proper lookout, and accelerating appropriately from the roundabout.
3. On the balance of probabilities, the claimant moved quickly through the westbound traffic, did not pause for any appreciable time before entering the eastbound lane, and was shielded by a larger vehicle until the last moment. The driver therefore had insufficient time to perceive the hazard and take effective evasive action. The primary liability case failed.
4. The alternative case also failed. The accident-reconstruction calculations depended on uncertain assumptions about the duration and location of any pause, conspicuity, reaction times and braking. The court could not treat those assumptions as established by the eyewitness evidence. Expert evidence could not supply the missing factual foundation or impose a mathematical framework for judging the driver.
5. The proposed reduced-injury case was too speculative. A slower impact would have changed the claimant’s position and the interaction with the vehicle, but the evidence could not reliably establish where she would have struck the car, whether her head would have struck the vehicle or road, or what injuries would have resulted. Causation could not be proved on that basis.
6. Even if negligence had been established, the claimant’s contributory fault would have resulted in a very substantial reduction in damages.