Careless Driving

Regina v. Beauchamp, 1952 CanLII 60 (ON CA)

Motor vehicles are now in general use as a common means of transportation and pleasure. If too high a standard of care and skill were demanded, those people who are not capable of attaining such a standard would be deprived of the privilege of driving motor vehicles, and their use would be confined to experts, and even persons who might become experts might well be prevented from qualifying as such by experience. It must also be borne in mind that the test, where an accident has occurred, is not whether, if the accused had used greater care or skill, the accident would not have happened. It is whether it is proved beyond reasonable doubt that this accused, in the light of existing circumstances of which he was aware or of which a driver exercising ordinary care should have been aware, failed to use the care and attention or to give to other persons using the highway the consideration that a driver of ordinary care would have used or given in the circumstances?

Applying these principles to the facts of this case, I am of the opinion that the appellant is right in his submission that there is no evidence to justify a conviction. The uncontradicted evidence is that the appellant looked while coming out of the garage and there was then no motor car parked on the street. He looked through the back window of the bus and also in the rear-view mirror before backing and then backed very slowly. He did not see the parked car, apparently because of the length of his vehicle, the position of his rear window and the relative position of the car at that time. It was 7 a.m. in a small town, when he might reasonably have anticipated that a car would not drive up behind his bus into a position where it could not be seen through his rear window in the very brief period of time that elapsed between his comming out of the garage and his backing up. It was clearly not such a lack of care in these circumstances as could be considered deserving of punishment.

R. v. Mir-Husseini, 2008 ONCJ 319 (CanLII)

18. In R. v. Globocki [1991], O.J. No. 214 (O.C.J.), the Court found that where an accident has occurred, the fact that serious damage, injury or even death has resulted is not, except in unusual cases, relevant to an assessment of whether there has been a departure from the standard of care which would justify a finding of careless driving. The Prosecution is required to show sufficient departure from the standard of a prudent and reasonable driver to render the driving “deserving of punishment.” In R. v. Belisle [1992] Y.J. No. 119, the Court expressed that principle in this way: “…in law the Court must focus on the elements alleged to constitute careless driving, and not on the consequences of the driving, regardless of how serious or tragic the consequences of Careless Driving may be.” In Globocki, the Court held that in each case “it is necessary to consider whether and to what extent the defendant departed from the standard appropriate to the factual circumstances facing the defendant.”