PUBLIC USE OF HIGHWAYS.
After the roads are ready for use and beautified by shade trees and green parks at convenient places, we are confronted with the question, How are they to be used by the public and the owners of adjoining estates? We, as a people, are not only continental and terrestrial travellers, but we are continually passing hither and thither over the public ways of this State, and consequently it is important for us to know how to travel the common roads in a legal and proper manner.
In the first place, every one who travels upon a public thoroughfare is bound to drive with due care and discretion, and to have an ordinarily gentle and well trained horse, with harness and vehicle in good roadworthy condition, as he is liable for whatever damages may be occasioned by any insufficiency in this respect.[32 ]
Another duty which every traveller is bound to observe is to drive at a moderate rate of speed. To drive a carriage or other vehicle on a public way at such a rate or in such a manner as to endanger the safety of other travellers, or the inhabitants along the road, is an indictable offence at common law, and amounts to a breach of the peace; and in case any one is injured or damaged thereby, he may look to the fast driver for his recompense. But it does not follow that a man may not drive a well-bred and high-spirited horse at a rapid gait, if he does not thereby violate any ordinance or by-law of a town or city; for it has been held that it cannot be said, as matter of law, that a man is negligent who drives a high-spirited and lively-stepping horse at the rate of ten miles an hour in a dark night.[33 ]
It then behooves every one to drive with care and caution, whether he is going fast or slow; and it also behooves him to see that his servants drive with equal care and caution, for he is responsible to third persons for the negligence of his servants, in the scope of their employment, to the same extent as if the act were his own, although the servants disobey his express orders. If you send your servant upon the road with a team, with instructions to drive carefully and to avoid coming in contact with any carriage, but instead of driving carefully he drives carelessly against a carriage, you are liable for all damages resulting from the collision; and if the servant acts wantonly or mischievously, causing thereby additional bodily or mental injury, such wantonness or mischief will enhance the damage against you.[34 ]
You may think this a hard law; but it is not so hard as it would be if it allowed you to hire ignorant, wilful, and incompetent servants to go upon the road and injure the lives and property of innocent people without redress save against the servants, who perchance might be financially irresponsible. It should however be stated in this connection that if your team should get away from you or your servant, without any fault on your or his part, and should run away and do great damage, by colliding with other teams, or by running over people on foot, you would not be held responsible, as in law it would be regarded as an inevitable accident. Thus, if your horse should get scared by some sudden noise or frightful object by the wayside, or through his natural viciousness of which you were ignorant, or by some means should get unhitched after you had left him securely tied, and in consequence thereof should plunge the shaft of your wagon into some other man's horse, or should knock down and injure a dozen people, you would not be liable, because the injury resulted from circumstances over which you had no control.[35 ]
CHAPTER X.
"THE LAW OF THE ROAD."
There are certain rules applicable to travellers upon public ways, which are so important that everybody ought to know and observe them. The law relative thereto is known as "the law of the road." These rules relate to the meeting, passing, and conduct of teams on the road; and it is more important that there should be some well established and understood rules on the subject than what the rules are. In England the rules are somewhat different, and some of them are the reverse of what they are in this country. But the rules and the law relating thereto in this country are about the same in every State of the Union. Our statutes provide that when persons meet each other on a bridge or road, travelling with carriages or other vehicles, each person shall seasonably drive his carriage or other vehicle to the right of the middle of the travelled part of such bridge or road, so that their respective carriages or other vehicles may pass each other without interference; that one party passing another going in the same direction must do so on the left-hand side of the middle of the road, and if there is room enough, the foremost driver must not wilfully obstruct the road.[36 ]