CASE LAW - Facher v Bismellah

BC Courts Coat of Arms This case involves a collision between vehicles driven by Shafiqullah Bismellah and Sung Lee. They were both approaching a sharp right angle corner from opposite directions where Southpoint Drive becomes Sounthwynde Avenue in Burnaby. Evidence of Fawad Facher, a passenger in Mr. Bismellah's vehicle, is that he was traveling too fast for the corner, failed to stay in his lane and collided with Ms. Sung. His position was that one of both of the others were responsible for injuries that he sustained in the collision.

Ms. Lee argued that she had done nothing to breach her duty of care as a driver.

Mr. Bismellah's position is that Ms. Lee should have seen him coming and should have been able to move out of the way to avoid the collision. Ms. Lee could be negligent as well if she was driving too close to the center line given the sharpness of the curve, even if she did not leave her lane. The case of Hale v MacEwen was cited.

Mr. Justice Veenstra found that Mr. Bismellah was driving too fast for conditions and was unable to stay in his own lane. Ms. Lee could not have reasonably see Mr. Bismellah's vehicle so he was wholly liable for the collision.

Maybe I've missed something, here.

But is there any evidence that either driver actually stopped at their stop sign?

Or did they both feel that was unnecessary?

Arguably, that meeting of streets doesn't need any stop signs (I would guess that for years, drivers have just zipped around the corner.)

So those stop signs aren't really a 'right-of-way' sign (what they should be) but actually an effort to slow vehicles down (not their purpose).

But a solid centre barrier, even if it was only a curb going through the corner, would have prevented this crash as both drivers would have simply been responsible for keeping their own vehicle on the right side of the road.

I reckon

Both drivers didn't stop and weren't planning to stop, so the judge omitted any mention of it as mutually excluded.

The 5 second skid from 30km/h where the driver was waiving and honking at the other driver made me laught, at that speed, even on wet surface, a Chevy Cavalier would stop on a dime. Speed must've been over 70km/h before the driver went hard on the brakes.

Case Law

Collisions