Does a Driver Have a Right to Assume that the Road Ahead is Clear of Traffic?
Background
On the date of the accident, a semi truck driver was driving a refrigerated tractor-trailer northbound on Roswell Road near its intersection with Maryenna Drive in Sandy Springs. He was employed full-time by a logistics company and had driven the same route where the incident occurred without any issues on a weekly basis for nearly five years before the incident.
But this time, a utility wire was hanging below its typical spot, unnoticed by the truck driver. The cab of the truck cleared the wire, but the top of the trailer caught on the wire. As the trailer continued to travel, it pulled the wire and, in turn, two utility poles, which broke into the roadway, where one of them struck the plaintiff’s car.
The truck driver said he had no knowledge of the wire’s placement and couldn’t see a wire hanging below its typical placement. He went on to state that it was “completely out of his field of vision” when it clipped the trailer. Moreover, he said he couldn’t reasonably foresee that he wouldn’t be able to safely drive on the road.
The plaintiff likewise hadn’t noticed any issues with the wire and wasn’t sure whether it was visible that the wire was lower. At her deposition, she noted that an officer told her that the truck driver “saw the low-hanging line, but knew there wasn’t any way he could stop. So he just had to keep going, and it caught the line and pulled the poles down.” She also recalled a police officer and a bystander nurse “kind of getting into it because she was adamant about me needing to be checked out.”
The defendant presented 33 minutes of video from a camera worn by one of the officers on the scene. After 20 minutes, a firefighter approached the officer and asked if anybody had talked to the plaintiff yet, at which point the officer stated that he didn’t know she was involved. At least two other officers were shown on the video, but it wasn’t clear if one of them spoke with the plaintiff or the bystander nurse.
The video showed that the wire was black and thick; it was located near a yellow painted stripe in the road; and that it looked to be approximately half the width of that stripe. In contrast, other wires in the video appeared starkly against the grey, cloudy background of the sky.
Negligence and Reasonable Foreseeability
Judge Johnny N. Panos of the DeKalb County State Court in Georgia wrote that a driver has no right to assume that the road ahead of her is clear of traffic, and it’s her duty to maintain a diligent outlook ahead. A motorist breaches this duty where she’s able to reasonably ascertain that she’s about to be involved in a collision and nevertheless takes no reasonable evasive action where possible.
The defendant argued that while the duty of a driver is to keep a diligent outlook ahead, there’s no duty to “search the skies” while driving for any wires or other hazards out of view that may arise without warning and that this wouldn’t be a safe responsibility to place on drivers while driving. Rather, he argued that no evidence was presented that the driver could have, or should have, seen the low hanging wire.
The Court found that the visibility of the wire and its distance from the ground, and whether the defendant truck driver could have seen it, was a genuine issue of material fact for a jury.
The defendant further argued that the plaintiff couldn’t show proximate cause because the truck driver couldn’t have avoided this incident because it wasn’t reasonably foreseeable, and he was exercising reasonable care in the operation of his semi truck. Thus, the Court found that the reasonable foreseeability of the low hanging wire and whether the truck driver could have avoided the incident was a genuine issue of material fact for determination by a jury.
The defendant’s motion was denied. Robertson v. Kemmerer, 2023 Ga. State LEXIS 3145 (Dekalb Cnty., August 18, 2023).
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