Wilson v Williams

• Jurisdiction: Trinidad & Tobago
• Court: Court of Appeal (Trinidad and Tobago)
• Judge: Wooding, C.J.
• Judgment Date: 19 April 1963
• Neutral Citation: TT 1963 CA 25
• Docket Number: No. 57 of 1963
• Date: 19 April 1963

Court of Appeal

Wooding C.J.; Hyatali, C.A.; Phillips, J.A

No. 57 of 1963

Wilson

and

Williams

Road traffic - Appeal against conviction — Driving without reasonable consideration for other persons using the road

Facts: Appellant charged with driving without reasonable consideration for other persons using the road. On appeal argued that the findings of the magistrate were unreasonable and insupportable having regard to the evidence

Held: Because we are unable to differ from the magistrate on his findings of fact and because, those findings do establish a case for driving without consideration for other persons using the road, this appeal must be dismissed with costs.

Wooding, C.J.

1 The appellant was charged with driving his motor car PC.3733 on the Naparima-Mayaro Road, New Grant, on 4th June, 1961, without reasonable consideration for other persons using the road. The offence so charged is one of two created by section 47 of the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Ordinance, Ch. 16 No. 3 hereinafter referred to as “the Ordinance”), the other being that of driving without due care and attention. It follows, we think, that, the legislature thereby contemplated that a person may drive with due care and attention so far as his own safety is concerned, but nevertheless without reasonable consideration for other users of the road.

2 In R. v. Surrey Justices, ex parte Witherick (1932) 1 K.B. 450, it was held that the two offences created by section 12 of the Road Traffic Act, 1930, which is in terms the same as section 45 of the Ordinance, are separate offences and, therefore, that they cannot be charged in the alternative in one and they same information. It was nevertheless recognised that by one and the same act a man may commit, two offences. The question we have, therefore, to decide is whether, in driving as it was alleged he did, the appellant drove without due care and attention or without reasonable consideration for other users of the road or without due care and attention and without reasonable consideration for other users of the road.

3 In the case above cited, the court thought it unnecessary “to give illustrations of how a man may be driving with due care and attention so far as his own safety is concerned, and yet driving without reasonable consideration for other persons”. But in Wilkinson on Road Traffic Offences (3rd Edn.) at p. 96, it is stated that “drivers have been prosecuted for...