Kane v. Williams

PER Curiam. In this action for personal injuries sustained by an infant as the result of the collision of a bicycle with an automobile at an intersection controlled by a stop sign, the trial court granted a directed verdict in favor of the motorist against the teenage cyclist on the ground that the infant was contributorily negligent as a matter of law. Upon the entry of the judgment for costs, the infant plaintiff appealed. On his way to school, the eleven year old boy, while riding a bicycle on the unfavored street, ignored the stop sign and entered the intersection in front of the oncoming automobile to his right on the favored street and was struck by ⁶¹ the right side of the automobile before it reached the intersection.

There was some evidence that the motorist, who applied the brakes as soon as she saw the cyclist, may have been traveling at a speed greater than was reasonable and proper in a school zone, but the infant, though claiming that he had looked both ways before entering the intersection (which he said was obstructed by trees and shrubbery) admitted that he did not stop and that he “just wasn’t thinking.” Three questions are presented by the appeal. One concerns the propriety of directing a verdict for the defendant on the contributory negligence of the infant plaintiff. The other two relate to the primary negligence of the defendant. Since the motor vehicle laws pertaining to the rules of the road and traffic control devices and signals are as applicable to a cyclist as they are to the driver of a motor vehicle, Code (1957), Art. 66%, § 184, it was incumbent upon the infant plaintiff before entering an intersection controlled by a stop sign to “come to a full stop in obedience to [the] stop sign and yield the right of way” to the