Plаintiff sued to recover damages resulting from a collision on State trunk line highway 71 in Shiawassee county between an automobile driven by plaintiff and a trailer attached to a tractor, owned by the defendants. During a trial by jury the defendant moved for a directed verdict on the ground that the proofs showed the plaintiff guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law. The court reserved decision on the motion and submitted the case to the jury, resulting in verdict for the plaintiff. The defendants’ subsequent motion for judgment non obstante veredicto was denied, аnd they now appeal from the judgment entered for the plaintiff. The only question for review is whether the plaintiff’s negligence, which thе court submitted to the jury, was a question of fact, or whether plaintiff was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law.. Under the circumstances, plaintiff’s testimony is accepted as true.
At about 7:30 in the morning of January 4, 1949, plaintiff was driving his automobile northwesterly on State highway 71, a 2-lane paved trunk line. The defendants’, driver of the tractor-trailer outfit had started to back across the pavеment into a driveway, and had stopped. The headlights of the tractor were directed south toward the direction from which plаintiff was approaching, and the trailer complete *488 ly obstructed plaintiff’s northbound lane of the highway. Plaintiff, traveling 35 miles per hour, saw the headlights of defendants’ tractor when at a distance of about a half mile. When about 200 feet from defendants’ tractоr he was completely blinded by its headlights, slowed'down to 20 miles per hour and dimmed his own headlights. Pie continued to travel at about 20 miles per hour and did not see defendants’ trailer blocking his lane until the front of his automobile was within 12 or 15 feet from it. Thereupon he applied his brakes, hit the trailer and was injured. The front of plaintiff’s car was smashed, and the hood of his automobile was driven under the trailer to within a few inches of the windshield.
Unless plaintiff’s failure to stop within the assured clear distance ahead is excused by circumstances hereinafter referred to, he was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law. It is well settled by many decisions of this Court that it is nеgligence as a matter of law for one to drive an automobile along a public highway in the dark at such speed that it cаnnot be stopped within the clear distance that objects can be seen ahead of it by the driver.
Budnick v. Peterson,
Plaintiff claims that when the frоnt of his automobile was even with the tractor’s headlights, 12 or 15 feet from the trailer, while he was still traveling about 20 miles per hour, he discovered the trailer *489 across Ms lane of traffic and immediately applied Ms brakes. He testified that while the pavement was elsewhere and otherwise dry, “it had a film — little film or sort of moisture or mist that settled that time of morning. That had apparently frozen on the highwаy and caused just enough slipperiness to prevent me from stopping the car.” Relying on cases which allow an exception to the “assured clear distance ahead” rule, plaintiff claims that the film, moisture or mist on the pavement caused Mm to skid. His own testimony and that of his witnesses negatives the claim. He testified that at 20 miles per hour he could normally stop within the length of Ms automobile, 200 inches, approximately 16| feet. He admits approaching the trailer at about 20 miles per hour to within 12 or 15 feet befоre he saw it. According to Ms own testimony, .he could not then have avoided the collision even if conditions had been normal. His witnesses testified to skid marks, about 12 to 15 feet, and said that they “were black marks like burns * * just ordinary black skid marks from an automobile tire.”
The undisputed facts do not support plaintiff’s theory that a proximate cause of the accident was a slippery condition of the pavement rather than Ms own negligence in continuing to travel at about 20 miles per hour for nearly 200 feet after he was blindеd by the tractor’s headlights, until the front of his automobile was within 12 or 15 feet of the obstruction across Ms traffic lane before he saw it. His оwn testimony shows that at that point he could not have stopped without hitting the trailer, even if there had been no “little film or sort of mоisture or mist” on that particular part of the pavement.
The facts in the cases relied on by plaintiff to excuse his running into the trailer distinguish them. In
Diederichs
v.
Duke,
“Auto driver driving at night at rate of 20 miles per hour with dim lights, so that he could not stop within rаnge of vision, and who crashed into unlighted standing truck, was guilty of contributory negligence as matter of law (PA 1921 [2d Ex Sess], No 3)/
“Plaintiffs were not entitled to go to jury on theory that driver was prevented from stopping because of oil or some unusual condition on pavement whiсh had not been discernible previously, where there was no testimony to sustain said theory.
“Where, in action for damages causеd to plaintiffs when their automobile crashed into unlighted truck standing on pavement in nighttime, it conclusively appears that driver of plaintiffs’ car was guilty of contributory negligence, verdict should have been directed for defendants, notwithstanding fact that their, negligence also conclusively appears.”
In the case before us, one of the proximate causes of plaintiff’s running into the trailer was his continuing to drive at about 20 miles per hour for nearly *491 200 feet, -with Ms headlights dimmed, when he was blinded by the tractor’s headlights, without observing the trailer across his lane until he was too close to it to stop short of an accident, regardless of whether the pаvement was slippery or dry. Because of his failure to slow down so that he could have seen the trailer within his assured clear distance ahead, he was guilty of contributory negligence as a matter of law.
Reversed and remanded for entry of judgment for defendants, with costs.