57 Cal. App. 2d 17 | Cal. Ct. App. | 1943
This is an action for damages, the plaintiff having been injured in a collision between an automobile in which she was riding and a 30-foot bus owned by the corporate defendant and driven by the individual defendant. The collision occurred on a clear dry day in May, 1939, at the intersection of 48th Street and El Cajon Boulevard in San Diego. 48th Street runs north and south, and El Cajon Boulevard east and west. El Cajon is 66 feet wide from curb to curb and is marked for two lanes of travel on each side of the center. On the south half of that street it is 16 feet from the property line to the south curb, 22 feet from that curb to the first white line and 12 feet from that line to the double center line. 48th Street is 36 feet wide with boulevard-stop signs at its intersection with El Cajon. At the time in question the defendants’ bus had proceeded north on 48th Street and was making a left turn in order to proceed west on El Cajon when it collided with the car in which the plaintiff was riding, which was proceeding east on El Cajon in the northerly of the two south lanes. That car was being driven by a Mrs. Keeney.
This action was tried by the court without a jury and the defendants have appealed from a judgment in favor of the plaintiff. Their sole contention is that the evidence is not sufficient to support a finding of negligence on the part of the driver of the bus. It is argued that the bus driver had the right of way since he entered the intersection first and since he stopped and yielded the right of way to other vehicles approaching so closely as to constitute an immediate hazard, as required by section 552 of the Vehicle Code, and that the only inference which may reasonably be drawn is that the driver of the bus was not negligent.
The driver of the bus testified that as he approached this
Another witness testified that the Keeney ear was traveling " in the lane immediately south of the center line of El Cajon and that he did not see that car “vere to its left or its right or run around the other cars that were east bound and in the lane of traffic to the south of it.”
While the driver of the bus stopped at this intersection it cannot be said, as a matter of law, that there were no vehicles “approaching so closely on the through highway as to constitute an immediate hazard,” and a question of fact was presented as to whether he complied with the requirements of section 552 of the Vehicle Code. If, as this driver says, there was no obstruction to the view between the two vehicles no good reason appears why he did not see the other ear until after he had entered the northerly of the two south traffic lanes. Although he started forward when the front of his bus was only 16 feet from the lane in which the Keeney car was traveling, according to his own testimony, he did not see the Keeney car until the front end of the bus had reached that lane. When he reached that point the Keeney car was actually so close that he was not able to get across that lane in front of it. The margin of time and space was very narrow, at best, and it cannot be said as a matter of law that the situation which actually existed could not, with reasonable care, have been observed before the bus entered the lane in which the other car was traveling. While the bus driver testified that when he arrived at that lane the other ear was some 40 feet west of the west property line of 48th Street, a portion of the respondent’s testimony indicates that the Keeney car was closer than that when the bus driver started up from his position of safety. It appears that this
The judgment is affirmed.
Marks, J., and Griffin, J., concurred.
A petition for a rehearing was denied March 1, 1943, and appellants’ petition for a hearing by the Supreme Court was denied April 1, 1943.