Bickley v. Southern Pennsylvania Traction Co.

Citations

• 56 Pa. Super. 113
• 1914 Pa. Super. LEXIS 54

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Automobiles—Street railways — Collision between car and machine.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p> <p>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.</p>