Ben Handy and Sophie Howard write an article for APIL PI Focus, examining the difficulties in establishing liability in claims involving child pedestrians.
The courts have long recognised the imbalance between drivers and vulnerable road users when considering issues of liability. The Highway Code now sets out a ‘hierarchy of road users’ which identifies pedestrians, in particular children, as one of the groups of road users most at risk from road traffic. Rule 205 states ‘in any interaction between road users, those who can cause the greatest harm have the greatest responsibility to reduce the danger or threat they pose to others.’
However, it is not the case that where there is a collision between a vehicle and a child pedestrian, a finding of liability on the part of the driver will always follow. All claimants must establish on the balance of probabilities that the defendant was negligent. As set out in AB v Main [2015] EWHC 3183 (QB): ‘…the standard of care is that of the reasonably careful driver, armed with common sense and experience of the way pedestrians, particularly (in this case) children, are likely to behave. If a real risk of a danger emerging would have been reasonably apparent to such a driver, then reasonable precautions must be taken; if the danger was no more than a mere possibility, which would not have occurred to a reasonable driver, then there is no obligation to take extraordinary precautions…’ The courts frequently remind us that the defendant is not to be judged by the standards of an ideal driver, nor with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight (Stewart v Glaze [2009] EWHC 704).
Read the full article here.