The High Court has found that a car driver was liable for an accident in which he hit a nine-year-old girl on a crossing.
The girl and her family were approaching the crossing when they spotted the oncoming car. The rest of her family slowed down, but the girl continued into the road for just over a second and the car collided with her. She sustained serious injuries.
The driver of the car contended that the girl was partly responsible for her injuries. However, the Court found that she had made a momentary error of judgment that did not amount to contributory negligence. The Court considered that it would be unreasonable to expect a girl of her age to have kept a close eye on her family and to have stopped crossing the road barely a second earlier.
It was established that the driver had been going too quickly. If he had been driving at 30mph, he would have been able to stop in plenty of time to avoid hitting the girl.