Bickley v. Southern Pennsylvania Traction Co.
Bickley v. Southern Pennsylvania Traction Co.
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
The plaintiff was driving his heavy automobile, containing three passengers, at a speed of about six miles an hour, on one of the streets of Chester. As he approached at right angles a grade crossing of the defendant's trolley line, and while at the curb line of the street, about fifteen feet distant from the nearer rail, he saw coming toward the crossing a trolley car, when it was 250 feet distant. He believed he had ample time to cross in safety; proceeded at increased speed, and when at the first rail of the track, the car was 160 feet away. The front part df the automobile crossed the track in safety, when it was struck by the trolley car and hurled from fifteen to eighteen feet along the track. The motorman admitted that he was behind his scheduled time, and was running at a speed of thirty to thirty-five miles an hour. An ordinance of the city, offered in evidence, required the motorman to “shut off the current, slow up the car and reduce the speed to five miles an hour when approaching any street or road, and to have the car under full control.''
A complication is added to the case, in that, when the automobile entered upon the track, “She would not take her gas as fast as she should, and would not go across the track as fast as intended” by the driver, which delayed in some degree the passage across the tracks. While this is not controlling, it was for the consideration of the jury, in regard to which, the trial judge said, “take into consideration that he was driving the car, and his knowledge of his ability to control it.”
The appellant urges that from the plaintiff’s own testimony, he must be held to be guilty of contributory negligence, in attempting to cross the^ tracks in plain view of the approaching car.
It is not evident that the plaintiff made a miscalculation of the time it would take the car to reach the crossing had it approached under the usual speed, and he was not bound to mathematical accuracy in determining this question. True it is, that he knew the crossing was a dangerous one, and, that he was driving his own car, with which he was familiar. The unexpected failure of the car “to take hold of the gas” was outside of his calculations, but he was not bound to anticipate that this unlooked for thing should happen at that critical moment. His care of his own life would prompt, as the law requires, that only the reasonable and ordinary events were to be anticipated and provided against. The
A person about to cross a street at a regular crossing
In this conflict of evidence the rule is that, where the measure of duty is not unvarying, where a higher degree of care is demanded under some circumstances than under others, where both the duty and the extent of performance are to be ascertained as facts, a jury alone can determine what is negligence, and whether it has been proved. And this is to be ascertained from all the facts and circumstances disclosed by the testimony, and the inferences to be drawn from the facts are for the jury and not for the court: McMahen v. White, 30 Pa. Superior Ct. 169; Ryan v. Ardis, 190 Pa. 66; Sheetz v. Traction Co., 49 Pa. Superior Ct. 177.
The trial judge correctly stated the law in its charge to the jury, and the points submitted by the defendant did not fully and clearly present all of the legal proposi
The judgment is affirmed.
Reference
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- Bickley v. Southern Pennsylvania Traction Company
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- Syllabus
- Negligence — Automobiles—Street railways — Collision between car and machine. 1. In an action to recover damages for injuries to. an automobile the question of the motorman’s negligence and the chauffeur’s contributory negligence is for the jury, where the evidence shows that the automobile approached a crossing at a rate of six miles per hour, that the chauffeur looked and listened and saw an electric car about 160 feet from him as he neared the tracks, that the machine did not take its gas as fast as it should and was struck before it cleared the tracks, by the street car going at a rate of thirty to thirty-five miles an hour, that the legal limit at crossings was only five miles an hour, and that the automobile was hurled by the car eighteen feet along the tracks. 2. A person about to cross a street at a regular crossing is not bound to wait because a car is in sight. If it is at such a distance from him, that he has reasonably ample time to cross, if it is run at its usual rate of speed, it cannot be said as a matter of law, that he is negligent in going on. 3. Where the measure of duty is not unvarying, where a higher degree of care is demanded under some circumstances than under others, where both the duty and the extent of performance are to be ascertained as facts, a jury alone can determine what is negligence, and whether it has been proved. And this is to be ascertained from all the facts and circumstances disclosed by the testimony, and the inference to be drawn from the facts are for the jury and not for the court.