TISHIGU AND ANOTHER v. ABUDULAI DAGOMBA AND OTHERS

JUDGMENT OF ANNAN J.

The plaintiffs claim damages for injuries suffered by them in a motor accident on the Tamale—Kumbungu road. The accident occurred at about 7 p.m. and there were two vehicles involved. The vehicles were travelling in opposite directions and the plaintiffs were in one vehicle sitting one behind the other at the extreme right-hand side. The only account given as to the accident itself is that of the plaintiffs.

In the statement of claim the plaintiffs set out several particulars of negligence. They also relied on the maxim res ipsa loquitur. It is quite clear that the evidence given by the plaintiffs showed that the two vehicles came into contact when they were passing by each other, This evidence was not challenged or contradicted by the defendants.

Apart from the evidence of the plaintiffs there is the evidence of the pleas of guilty of the drivers of the two vehicles to charges brought under regulation 31 (2) (a) of the Road Traffic Regulations, 1957 (L.N. 135 of 1957), namely that on 2 June 1965 on the Tamale—Kumbungu road they drove motor vehicles No. AT 5984 and AN 2521 the overall width of which exceeded the maximum width of 7ft. 6in. by four inches in each case. The plaintiffs relied on the evidence of the pleas of guilty as some evidence of negligence. The defendants did not admit negligence in their pleadings and did not call any evidence.

From the pleadings the onus was on the plaintiffs to establish that the first and the second defendants, the drivers, were negligent. Neither plaintiff could tell what actually caused the accident. The first plaintiff said that the vehicles "grazed each other." Apart from" this evidence there is nothing else as to the nature of the contact between the two vehicles. The plaintiffs rely on this evidence as the evidence of a collision between the two vehicles. Granted that these accounts, uncontradicted as they are, afford evidence of. a collision there is nothing else to show the kind of collision it was. The suggestion I take is that this was a head-on collision between two vehicles travelling in opposite directions. Such a suggestion could be made no doubt with a certain line of cases in mind, the leading case being that of Baker v. Market Harborough Industrial Co-operative Society, Ltd. [1953] 1 W.L.R. 1472, C.A. Apart from this case there are also such cases as France v. Parkinson [1954] 1 AU E.R. 739, C.A. and Price v. Price, The Times, 12 February 1954, unreported, C.A.

The issue