Ramoo v Ong Ah Ho and Another

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Buttrose J
• Judgment Date: 31 May 1968
• Neutral Citation: [1968] SGHC 14
• Docket Number: Suit No 1219 of 1967
• Date: 31 May 1968
• Published date: 19 September 2003
• Year: 1968
• Plaintiff Counsel: HE Cashin (Murphy & Dunbar)
• Citation: [1968] SGHC 14
• Defendant Counsel: Yap Tyou Min (Batten berg & Talma),KE Hilborne (Hilborne & Co)
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Subject Matter: Traffic accident at road junction with defective traffic lights,Loss of future earnings,Duty of care,Personal injuries cases,Damages,Degree of culpability,Tort,Whether duty breached,Pain and suffering,Negligence,Measure of damages

These proceedings arise out of an accident which occurred on 10 July 1966, at the junction of Dunearn and Whitley Roads between a motor lorry driven by the first defendant and a taxi, in which the plaintiff was a passenger, driven by the second defendant.

The taxi was proceeding along Dunearn Road towards the city while the motor lorry was travelling along Whitley Road in the direction of Dunearn Road intending to proceed across it and over the bridge which spans the canal between Dunearn and Bukit Timah Roads and on into Stevens Road which is in effect a continuation of Whitley Road.

The accident occurred in broad daylight on a Sunday morning at about 7.30am.

This entire junction, ie the Dunearn/ Whitley Road junction and the Bukit Timah/ Stevens Road junction, is controlled by traffic lights.

Both the first defendant and the plaintiff said that the traffic lights at the Dunearn/Whitley Road junction appeared to be in order and each of them maintained that as they reached the junction on courses at right angles to each other the lights controlling their respective entries on to and across the junction were green and in favour of each of them. The taxi driver (the second defendant) was not called as Mr Hilborne who appeared for him elected to call no evidence and took the stand that no prima facie case of negligence had been made out against his client.

The independent police evidence established quite clearly that at the material time the traffic lights controlling the entire junction were defective and not functioning properly. Apart from the other police evidence there was the evidence of police constable Say Lip Buck who said that as he was returning to his barracks at Wayang Satu after coming off duty at Orchard Road Police Station he noticed that the traffic lights were out of order. This was about 7am, some half an hour prior to the accident. The other police officers said that the traffic lights were still out of order after the accident.

I find as a fact that at the material time the traffic lights were defective and not working properly at the junction.

The evidence established that the traffic lights facing traffic approaching the junction from Whitley Road changed from green to amber and then back to green again with no red light appearing at all. The traffic lights facing traffic approaching the junction down Dunearn Road changed correctly from green to amber and then to red in their proper sequence but the changes were at a very fast rate and not at their normal speed.

According to a police corporal who was at the scene after the accident, and whose evidence I have no hesitation in accepting, at various stages during this malfunctioning of the traffic lights at the junction the lights controlling the traffic in both direction would be showing green for brief periods at short intervals.

What then are the principles of the law of negligence applicable to these findings of fact?

Mr Yap for the first defendant asked me to say that in these circumstances there is no negligence attributable to either defendant and the liability for the accident must rest with the traffic authorities for having a faulty traffic lighting control system in operation. He invoked in aid the case of Joseph Eve Ltd v Reeves [1938] 2 All ER 115 where the Court of Appeal considered the application of the principles of the law of negligence to crossings controlled by traffic lights.

But that was a case of a motor vehicle entering a crossing against the appropriate traffic lights when they were showing red and the Court of Appeal held that a motorist entering a crossing when the appropriate lights were green in his favour owed no duty to traffic entering the crossing in disobedience to the lights beyond a duty that if he in fact saw such traffic he ought to take all reasonable steps to avoid a collision. As MacKinnon LJ pointed out at p 125:

If, as the judge found, the light Reeves approached was green before he reached it, he was prima facie entitled to consider himself as on the open thoroughfare, and to go forward, without any apprehension that, in breach of the prohibition from the red light, the

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