Echols v. Vinson

• Decision Date: 10 October 1929
• Docket Number: 6 Div. 341.
• Parties: ECHOLS ET AL. v. VINSON.
• Court: Alabama Supreme Court

124 So. 510

220 Ala. 229

ECHOLS ET AL. v. VINSON.

6 Div. 341.

Supreme Court of Alabama

October 10, 1929

Rehearing Denied Nov. 29, 1929.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Jefferson County; John Denson, Judge.

Action for damages for personal injuries by L. W. Vinson against D A. Echols and John Angwin. From a judgment for plaintiff defendants appeal. Reversed and remanded.

Lange Simpson & Brantley, of Birmingham, for appellants.

Fort Beddow & Ray, of Birmingham, for appellee.

GARDNER J.

L. W. Vinson received injuries to his person and suffered damage also to his car by collision with an ambulance operated by Echols and Angwin at the intersection of Cotton avenue and McConnell streets in the city of Birmingham, and recovered judgment therefor, from which judgment defendants prosecute this appeal. The accident occurred about dusk, and the lights were on. There was much traffic at this crossing at that hour of the day.

Plaintiff's theory was that he reached the intersection and entered McConnell street at a very moderate speed in advance of the ambulance, and before it was dangerously near; that its siren was not sounded or other warning signal given, and that it was traveling at a very high rate of speed. On the other hand, defendant's evidence tended to show that the ambulance and plaintiff's car reached the intersection at approximately the same time; that, although the ambulance was traveling in an emergency with a patient en route to the hospital, the speed was reasonable and moderate, and the siren continuously sounded; that plaintiff's car ran in front of the ambulance at too high a speed and from the left-hand side thereof, and when first seen by the ambulance driver was too close to avoid collision. As a consideration of one question suffices for a disposition of the case, further detail statement of facts is deemed unnecessary.

To the following portion of the court's oral charge the defendants reserved exception: "Now, the law is that, when drivers of vehicles on streets that intersect approach that intersection, visible to each other, at such time and at such speed as would render their collision imminent, if one should not give way to the other, why then the vehicle entering the intersection last in point of time must, at its peril, be so conducted, circumstances permitting, as to allow the other vehicle to safely pass in front." The foregoing statement finds support in former decisions of this court. Whatley v. Nesbitt, 204 Ala. 334, 85 So. 550; Birmingham Stove & Range Co. v. Vanderford, 217 Ala. 342, 116 So. 334; L. Hammel Dry Goods Co. v. Hinton, 216 Ala. 127, 112 So. 638. But these cases were not dealing with, nor governed by, the recent act (Gen. Acts 1927, pp. 348, 372) establishing certain traffic regulations, wherein it is provided that, "when two vehicles approach or enter an intersection at approximately the same time, the driver of the vehicle on the left shall yield the right of way to the vehicle on the right, except as otherwise provided in section 62. The driver of any vehicle traveling at an unlawful speed shall forfeit any right of way which he might otherwise have hereunder." Section 64. The exception above noted is here without application, nor are we, upon the question here considered, concerned with any regulations by local authorities which might vary the general rule above noted. Gen. Acts 1927, p. 377, § 77.

We are persuaded this statute was intended as a substitute for the rule as stated in the above-cited cases, and to establish a uniform regulation as to crossings at street and highway intersections. By the greater width of one street over another, and the accelerated speed of one car approaching the intersection, in order that it may be the first to enter and thus gain the right of way, the...