Hellriegel v. Southern Traction Co.

Citations

• 23 Pa. Super. 392
• 1903 Pa. Super. LEXIS 81

Syllabus

<p>Negligence — Street railways — Use of streets — Due care — Joint use with public.</p> <p>It is the duty of railway companies to be watchful and attentive, and to use all reasonable precautions to give notice of their approach to crossings and places of danger. Their failure to exercise the care which the rate of speed and condition of the street demand is negligence.</p> <p>A street car company has not the exclusive right to the use of a street on which it operates its road, nor has it such right to its own tracks. The streets of the municipalities of the state are for the use of the traveling public, and the right of the street railway company to use them is in common with the public. The street railway company and the public are alike liable for the negligent use of the street; each must exercise its rights thereon with care and a due regard for the rights of the other.</p> <p>In an action against a street railway company to recover damages for personal injuries sustained in a collision between a wagon and an electric car, it appeared that at the point of the accident the street was verynar-row, and that the two tracks of the defendant occupied the entire cartway. There was also a curve near the place. Plaintiff was driving a one-horse wagon on the right-hand track, when he was warned by a car from behind on the same track to get off the track. He turned on to the other track and proceeded at a slow trot for about two squares when he was struck by a car coming in the opposite direction along the track into which he had turned. The car running on the right-hand track stopped twice between the place where the plaintiff left that track, and the place where the accident occurred, a distance of six or seven hundred feet, and, at the time of the accident, had overtaken plaintiff. The plaintiff alleged that the bell was not rung on the car approaching, and that the car was only visible for about twenty-five feet on account of a bank, the curve and intervening electric