A B.C. Supreme Court Justice took a Prince George man to task for his actions in finding him completely at fault for a collision on Highway 97 North near Summit Lake 28 months ago.
According to a reasons for judgment Justice Ronald McKinnon issued this week, Donald Bruce Jacobsen was driving on "quite worn" all-season tires that came with the car he purchased in 2009 when he started off on a trip from Prince George to Dawson Creek on Dec. 17, 2011.
Conditions were poor with sheer ice, fog patches and rain when Jacobsen went off the road at about midday. An unknown motorist pulled Jacobsen out of the snowbank but left him in the northbound lane facing southbound.
Unable to turn his wheels, and without a shovel, Jacobsen chose to use a scraper to chip the snow out of the wheel wells and while he turned the head lights on, he did not activate his four-way flashers. Jacobsen told the court he had just about finished the task when he saw a northbound pickup truck sliding towards him and leapt into the ditch.
The pickup truck's driver, Tyler Hart, and his passenger, Jamie Landolt, said they had just come around a slight curve with a hump when they saw what they thought was a vehicle traveling towards them and then realized it was in their lane. Hart honked his horn, braked and tried to steer away but the truck, which was equipped with one-year-old studded winter tires, slid sideways into the car's nose.
"In a refreshingly candid admission," McKinnon said Hart conceded he was probably going to fast for conditions, "but did not know whether he could have avoided the collision had he gone slower."
Hart also testified Jacobsen said at the scene it was his fault and apologized. But in what McKinnon called an "astounding peformance," Jacobsen later convinced an insurance adjuster he was an innocent victim.
"I was not so persuaded," McKinnon said and went on to describe Jacobsen as "not a credible witness."
"He argued with plaintiff's counsel, dismissed the plaintiff's expert opinion about the (car's) woeful lack of winter readiness, and generally set himself up as an expert northern driver fully alert and ready for winter conditions," McKinnon said.
"It was somewhat telling that even the defendant's expert engineer was critical of the defendant's position that 'all weather tires' were perfectly adequate for northern winter driving."
McKinnon found Hart was faced with the "agony of collision" doctrine.
"Given the curve and hump that obscured any clear view of just where the (car) was, he could not appreciate just what hazard was facing him," McKinnon said. "By the time he was able to see that the (car) was in fact parked substantially in his northbound lane there was almost no time to react. He cannot be faulted for opting to brake as oppose to some other manoeuvre."
Conversely, he found Jacobsen had a "duty to warn oncoming motorists of the hazard he had created by at least operating his four-way flashers. The better course would have been to flag the curve with emergency reflectors but he had no such equipment."
McKinnon also found that although the car's steering was impaired by the snow, Jacobsen could still have backed his vehicle to a safer position about 80 feet away.
Details of the injuries suffered were sparse in the decision, but McKinnon did find Hart was in "obvious pain" and testified he was "nauseous, on medication, was having difficulty with his memory, suffering headaches and possibly a concussion."
