Crossing and Double- Crossing
By C. K. ALLEN, K.C.
STATESMEN, soldiers and other distinguished persons have given their names in perpetuity to bags, boots, sandwiches and many other useful objects ; but it was reserved for the Rt. Hon. Leslie Hore-Belisha to immortalise himself by a beacon. It may not be much of a beacon, as beacons go, but it is a symbol of the rights, or the supposed rights, of Man versus Machine, and it has the majesty of the law behind it.
Unfortunately, however, the law is sometimes more majestic than intelligible. A crosser-over between the beacons is, unless my Latin has forsaken me, a kind of transgressor, whose way is notoriously hard. It has been harder than ever since Mr. Hore- Belisha sought to soften it—though not perhaps, as hard as that of the approaching motorist, who seems doomed to be wrong, whatever he does. His complicated duties are now laid down in the Pedestrian Crossing Places (Traffic) Regulations, 1941.
There are, as we all know, two kinds of crossings, the ordinary and the "controlled "—i.e., controlled either by lights or by a policeman. The driver of any vehicle " approaching " either kind of crossing must go (the Regulations prefer "proceed ") at such a speed that he can stop, if necessary, before reaching the crossing- " unless he can see that there is no foot passenger thereon." Any motorist will at once see that these words are peppered with pit- falls. At what point does the car become an " approaching " vehicle ? At what moment is the motorist supposed to see that there is or is not a foot passenger 'on the crossing—especially if there are two or three cars ahead of him obstructing his view ? Above all, if he is going at, say, fifteen miles an hour, and when he is five yards away from the crossing a suicidal pedestrian steps on the crossing—well, he can see the pedestrian all too plainly, but how is he to stop dead and prevent the pedestrian (all too literally) from stopping dead ? Noble and learned Lords have observed that if the Regulation were taken literally it would mean that all traffic was completely immobilised, and not even this ingenious drafts- man can have meant that.
Then, at an uncontrolled crossing, the motorist "at or approach- ing" the crossing must allow "free and uninterrupted passage' to the pedestrian ; and at a controlled crossing the same freedom must be allowed to any pedestrian who is on the crossing before the driver gets the green light or the constable's signal. Note that at controlled crossings there is nothing to forbid the pedestrian (as in some countries) from crossing even when the lights are against him. If he takes that risk, the driver is still bound to be " proceeding " at such a speed that he can stop before hitting the crosser. Fertile soil indeed for litigation and contradictory prece- dents ! The first case which arose, in 1938, under the predecessors of the 1941 Regulations, bid fair to be the jay walker's Magna Carta.
The Court of Appeal held, or appeared to hold, that once the driver was in breach of the regulations—i.e., being in an approaching vehicle, was not "proceeding at such a speed," &c.—it did not matter how suicidally the pedestrian had behaved ; or, in legal parlance, contributory negligence was no defence. The pedestrian could reel drunk over the crossing, or dance a rumba on it, or lie down in the middle of it, but that did not excuse the motorist unless he was going so slowly that he could pull up short of the crossing. This case, called Bailey v. Geddes, was the source of much later tribulation. Soon after it there came before a single Judge (since deceased) the case which was certain to arise, but which was quite overlooked by the Regulations—that of the jay walker stepping on to the crossing practically under the wheels of the car. Mr.
Justice Wrottesley (as he then was) held respectfully but firmly that Bailey v. Geddes really could not mean what is was supposed to mean, and rejected the plaintiff's claim for damages, on the ground of his contributory negligence. Next year very much the same question came before a differently constituted Court of Appeal and, by a majority, Bailey v. Geddes suffered the fate which has happened to many inconvenient decisions ; it was "distinguished."
Four years later it entered a further stage of judicial displeasure (usually fatal) by being "confined to its own facts "—which facts were held not to include using a pedestrian crossing for purposes of self-immolation during a black-out. Meanwhile, in 1940, when schizophrenia was beginning to come into fashion, the Court of Appeal held that the pedestrian crossing had developed a split personality. Thus you might get safely across, with the lights in your favour, as far as the midway "refuge," but that was only half the journey, and the rest of it was a new crossing altogether ; and consequently, if the lights then changed and you stepped under the legitimately oncoming traffic, then you had brought your fate on yourself, whatever Bailey v. Geddes might say. Thus is the pedestrian double-crossed by the law.
Later the House of Lords had to deal with an even more delicate (but doubtless not the last) problem of all this criss-crossing. A bus is approaching a controlled crossing at the moderate speed of 15 m.p.h. A taxi-cab is, in breach of law and decency, setting down a fare on the crossing, so that the bus-driver cannot see the pavement on his near side. Suddenly a pedestrian appears on the crossing from behind the taxi, nine feet in front of the bus. The inevitable happens. You may think what you like of the pedes- trian, but the House of Lords holds the bus-driver liable. "Unless," says the Regulatioa, in an awkwardly negative form, "he can see that there is no passenger thereon." How, you may ask, could he see whether there was or was not a passenger if the taxi obstructed his view ? Ah, but that was just his mistake! Since he could not see, he ought to have been going at such a pate (pre- sumably about nought m.p.h.) that, if he did see, he would be able to stop in time. In other words, he ought to have adapted his pace to the possibility of a fool walking out from behind the taxi. Hard on the bus-driver ? Perhaps, but the Lords have merely asserted a common-sense principle which every wise motorist learns early in his career—namely, that a careful driver never assumes that other people are as careful as himself.
The latest of the permutations and combinations is that terror of all motorists, the undecided pedestrian (in this case a child) who begins to cross, changes his mind and then retreats. Mr. Justice Humphreys has held (subject to appeal, no doubt) that there must be a point at which the motorist can assume that he has given free and uninterrupted passage, though apparently he must still go slowly enough to have a reasonable chance of stopping if the pedestrian behaves unexpectedly and foolishly. Poor pedestrian! And poor motorist! We have been promised for some time a new Ministry of Transport regulation—which, however, seems to hang fire—to cut this knot. Let us hope that the new draftsman will be more successful than his predecessor.
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