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PEDESTRIAN CROSSING CASE

Submitted by Editor on

First of Its Kind in Scotland

[From the Scotsman, 16 January 1936.]

An unusual case, the first of its kind in Scotland, was heard by Sheriff M‘Donald at Hamilton Sheriff Court yesterday, when John Mitchell, 40 St Enoch Square, Glasgow, denied a charge of having on October 21 last committed a contravention of the Pedestrian Crossing Places Provisional Regulations, by failing to allow free and uninterrupted passage to two pedestrians, one a woman of 75 years, at the junction of Main Street and Church Street, Cambuslang at the pedestrian crossing situated there.

The prosecution evidence was to the effect that accused drove past a stationary bus on to the pedestrian crossing, which he traversed in front of the woman and a man. If the woman had not stopped she would have been knocked down. 

Police constables at the locus stopped, warned and charged accused, who replied, ‘I saw the woman crossing, and when she stopped I thought I was entitled to go on.’ 

The defence was that accused approached the pedestrian crossing at a slow speed. He saw the woman and stopped. When she stopped and turned as if to go back he thought he was entitled to go on. 

Sheriff M‘Donald found accused guilty, and imposed a fine of £1, remarking that accused had perhaps acted under a misapprehension as to what his duty was.

[Image top-right: Steve Glover, Wikimedia Commons; Image below: Spurtle, Issue 325, 1 February 2023.]

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