A woman motorist whose mother and aunt were killed after she drove through a crossroads and a van collided with her car has lost a bid to sue a roads authority.
Ruth MacDonald, of Slackbuie Way, Inverness, blamed Aberdeenshire Council for the tragic, fatal accident in which she was injured claiming it had failed to put up sufficient signs and to maintain visible road markings.
Two days after the crash in May 2006 on the A97 Banff to Aberchirder road at Mill of Brydock “Give Way” markings, which had been scrubbed by traffic, were repainted at a cost of ￡150, it was said.
Mrs MacDonald maintained she was not aware that she was approaching a junction as she drove on a unclassified road heading for Inverness.
But the local authority successfully had ￡100,000 damages claim dismissed at the Court of Session in Edinburgh after maintaining it had no duty of care towards her or her mother Susan MacLennan (64) of Aird Avenue who died following the collision along with her sister Catriona Robertson (72) of MacKay Road, both Inverness.
Lord Uist said: “By painting lines at the junction because of the perceived risk of collisions the roads authority had not somehow imposed on themselves, retrospectively, a common law duty to paint the lines or, prospectively to paint them back if they were obliterated.”
In her action Mrs MacDonald (34) maintained there were “insufficient signs and markings” on the road to alert drivers to the junction and that they were to give way to traffic on the other route.
She said there had been road markings, double white lines and a triangle, but they had been scrubbed out by traffic over a period of time.
It was maintained that at that time the council system was for monthly inspections to be carried out on the road and one had taken place in April and there was “an open works order” indicating some repairs were necessary and markings were to be re-lined.
The local authority maintained Mrs MacDonald ought to have been aware she was approaching a junction from the road configuration and should have been keeping a good lookout for other traffic, such as the Ford Transit.
It was argued as had previously been stated in cases there were good policy reasons for not creating a duty of care in such cases. Public resources were scarce and drivers had to look after themselves by guarding against any danger on the roads.
The judge said no case was cited to him in which a road authority was held to be at fault merely because of a failure to mark white road marking lines or erect a warning sign at a junction and the fact that white lines had been put there previously had no bearing on the existence of duty.
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