Ohrn: A law firm’s view of a recent BC court case involving a person on a bike.
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BC COURT ACKNOWLEDGES POWER IMBALANCE BETWEEN CAR AND BIKE IN ROAD RAGE INCIDENT
January 7, 2015
By: Patrick Brown
In Davies v. Elston, 2014 BCSC 2435 (CanLII) the defendant motorist overheard two passing cyclists commenting on the danger presented by the outstretched mirrors of his truck, which was parked to the right of a designated bike lane. Annoyed, he got in his truck and chased the cyclists. A verbal altercation broke out and the cyclist fell and broke his hip.
Despite the fact that there was no contact between the car and the cyclists, the motorist was found to be entirely at fault for the cyclist’s injuries. Justice Griffin wisely states in the decision:
“No matter how aggravating a cyclist’s behavior might be, and I find there was nothing aggravating about the Davies’ conduct, a driver of a motor vehicle can never be justified in deliberately using a motor vehicle to confront a cyclist who is riding a bike… It has to be remembered that motor vehicles have four wheels, automatic brakes, seatbelts and the driver is nicely encased in a heavy steel cage and that a person on a bicycle is not in a situation which is the least bit comparable, even if going the same speed as a vehicle. A cyclist cannot stop on a dime, is vulnerable to losing balance, and can be seriously injured or killed if he or she makes contact with a motor vehicle or falls at a high speed.”
the judge is right
Cyclists can be dead right. If cylists follow the rules like a vehicle, not weave in & out of traffic. There’ll b less near misses & confrontation with pedestrians & motor vehicles.
Blaming the victim is a bad bit of thinking.
Albert Chin, cyclists are completely allowed to weave in and out of traffic. There is nothing to prohibit them from doing so. I think however your comment highlights the lack of education (for cyclists sometimes, motorists mostly) surrounding road rules and how bikes and other vehicles should share the road.
My take is that the judge ruled that there should be a bigger onus on the driver to avoid a crash with a person riding a bike. This is a great decision and brings us a tiny bit closer to having this concept enshrined directly in the traffic laws.
In my view, the decision is restricted to a pretty specific fact situation. The judge’s comment “… a driver of a motor vehicle can never be justified in deliberately using a motor vehicle to confront a cyclist who is riding a bike.” is hardly a new principle. In fact, if you substituted the word “pedestrian” or even “another vehicle” for “a cyclist who is riding a bike”, the result would be the same. A driver cannot intentionally use a vehicle to threaten or intimidate.
arnoschort … thats the rationale behind rules in the Netherlands and Denmark (and others?) in which the bigger/faster vehicle is assumed to be at fault unless proven otherwise … so the onus is on the more damaging vehicle to be more careful. Rather the inverse Vancouver behavior. It works quite well!
Hi IanR. (Good name!)
In most common law jurisdictions, the onus is on the claimant to make out his or her case on the balance of probabilities. There is no assumption of fault or liability. However, I expect that the nature of the vehicles, relative to each other, is a factor the court would likely take into account in determining whether the defendant’s conduct fell below the standard of care.