Is a local authority liable to the driver of car involved in a collision with another vehicle for its failure to ensure that a potentially dangerous road junction was indicated to approaching road users by visible road markings? No, says the Court of Session in the judgment handed down yesterday by Lord Uist in Macdonald v Aberdeenshire Council (available here: http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/opinions/2012CSOH101.html ). There is discussion of the Caparo tripartite test for liability, as well as of other prior relevant authority including the local authority liability decisions of the House of Lords in Gorringe v Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council [2004] 1 WLR 1057 and of the English Court of Appeal in Bird v Pearce [1979] RTR 369 (Lord Uist opines that the latter case was wrongly decided). Lord Uist holds that there was no duty of care owed to the driver of the respective vehicle, referring favourably to the reasoning of Lord Rodger in Gorringe, remarks Lord Uist felt supported the view that "by painting lines at the junction because of the perceived risk of collisions the roads authority had not somehow imposed on themselves, retrospectively, a common law duty to paint the lines or, prospectively, to paint them back if they were obliterated."

Regards,

Martin

Martin Hogg, Edinburgh Law School