The plaintiff T, driving his car easterly at a reasonable speed, was following a tractor-trailer truck when the truck slowed down and, without any signal being given, turned to the left as though to enter an Intersecting highway and then suddenly turned to the right to enter a private driveway. The left front of the car struck the right rear wheel of the truck. Held that it could be concluded that the statutory negligence of the truck driver In failing to signal his Intention to turn was a proximate cause of the collision and that the plaintiff was free from contributory negligence.
MURPHY, J.
The plaintiff Bartone sustained rather moderate personal injuries, and the automobile of the coplaintiff was damaged, when on February 25, 1957, it was in collision on Airport Road in Hartford with a forty-three-foot tractor-trailer truck owned by the defendant. From a judgment for the plaintiffs the defendant has appealed. The court concluded that the truck driver was negligent, that his negligence was the proximate cause of the collision, and that Bartone was not contributorily negligent. Mainly, the appeal is limited to those issues of liability.
The defendant is not entitled to any material change in the finding. The truck was proceeding easterly. Bartone was following it at a distance of thirty feet. Airport Road has two lanes with a double white line between them. Both vehicles were traveling at the same reasonable speed. The truck driver slowed the truck and turned to the left as though to enter an intersecting highway on the north. He then suddenly turned to the right to enter a private driveway on the south. He did not signal an intention to make either turn. Despite Bartone's attempt to avoid the collision, the left front of his car came in contact with the right rear wheel of the truck.
The failure of the truck driver to signal was in violation of statute and constituted negligence as a matter of law. General Statutes 14-242; Essam v. New York, N.H. H.R. Co., 140 Conn. 319, 325, 99 A.2d 138. Whether such negligence was a proximate cause of the collision was a question of fact. Peichert v. January, 142 Conn. 139, 142, 111 A.2d 811. The trial court's finding that Bartone was not attempting to pass on the right cannot be changed. It follows that the court could properly conclude, as it did, that Bartone was not proven contributorily negligent.