Negligence and Highway Surveys

Negligence and Highway Surveys

There was a sad situation with a guy who had just got his driver's license. He drove around a

corner too fast and rolled the car. He went through the window and broke his back. He was

paralyzed for life. Several million dollars were needed to look after him for the rest of his life.

Somebody convinced this fellow or his parents to sue the Ministry of Transportation and

Highways Department for negligence.

The speed limit on that stretch of highway was sixty miles per hour. There was supposed to be a

sign at the corner telling drivers to slow down to forty miles per hour. The sign had fallen down

and had not been put back up. The family argued it was the fault of the highways’ maintenance

man, who was sued jointly with the supervisor and the engineer in charge of highway

maintenance in the area.

I was hired by the government to do a survey of the scene and to be prepared to go to court in

Vancouver. I remember coming down the elevator with a top lawyer for the government. He was

probably paid ten times as much as I was paid. I told him that I had driven along that same piece

of road in a similar car belonging to my wife—an old Chevrolet.

I told him that I could go around that corner at sixty miles an hour with no problem. I even had

my wife with me. I had her drive the route, while I sat in the passenger seat. She had no trouble

driving around the corner at sixty miles. We did not go any more than sixty because it might

have been considered too fast. To me, the kid lost control. The lawyer told me I was not an

expert in driving speed and safety. I was hired to do the survey, and I could not speak to anything

else because he could not get me sworn in to give evidence about driving the corner.

It turned out that the opposing team had hired a specialist, a highways engineer from Vancouver,

to give his opinion on the road. It did not work out well. This highly rated engineer’s

presentation was based on other people's survey work (i.e., the government’s own survey work).

The only measurements he took were with a rolling tape, like the one real estate people use to

measure length. The whole accident, he said, was caused by the curvature in the road, the

sharpness of the corner, and the elevation. I could not believe what this specialist presented. His

information was no good for anything in the court case.

When I gave my evidence, I told them about driving that road. After I had presented such a

strong survey, they said, “Ray Johnson's kind of an expert. We'll have to listen to him.” They

invited me to talk about driving the road. They let me do it and the judge listened. The judge

wanted to personally thank me for that information. The poor kid, instead of getting millions of

dollars, received only forty thousand. I am sure they used that just to pay the lawyer.