DRIVER HITS CHILD RUNNING INTO ROAD

May 25th, 2010 admin

In February 2010 in the personal injury case of Richardson v Butcher the Court held that the defendant driver had been negligent in hitting an 8 year old child running out from the pavement into the road causing injury, even though in her defence it was found reasonable that she had been concentrating on the vehicle immediately in front of her which was making a turn.

The judge, Burnett J, held that the injured 8 year old child had been in the road for at least 2 seconds and was therefore “there to be seen”. The defendant not seeing the child amounted to a failure to keep a proper look out and she was therefore negligent as her diving had fallen below the standard of care required of a road user.

COMMENT:-

2 seconds is a very short amount of time on the one hand or plenty of time on the other – it all depends on your point of view. Normally, if a child or anyone else runs out in front of a car without notice the driver may be able to show that they had no chance to avoid a collision and escape liability. But if the driver could see children playing on the pavement or larking about then they must take this into account and monitor what they are doing.

The judge did make it clear that if the person who ran out had been an adult they would have had their compensation reduced by 25% for contributory negligence.

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