Key takeaways
- Bridget Driscoll, killed at London’s Crystal Palace on August 17, 1896, is remembered as Britain’s first pedestrian killed by a motor car.
- Henry Bliss, struck by an electric taxi in Manhattan on September 13, 1899, is recognized as the first U.S. motor vehicle fatality.
- California crash cases still turn on negligence: whether a driver used reasonable care (Civil Code section 1714).
Part 1 of 20 in our weekly series Car Accident Law Through History, by attorney Sean Keshishyan.
Every new technology arrives before the law is quite ready for it. When the first motor cars rolled onto streets built for horses, carriages and people on foot, nobody had written rules for how they should be driven, and courts had never been asked who pays when one of these machines kills someone.
Within just a few years, two deaths on opposite sides of the Atlantic forced that question into the open. The answers given in 1896 and 1899 were modest, but the legal framework they relied on, the law of negligence, is the same one that decides car accident cases in California today.
1896: Bridget Driscoll at the Crystal Palace
On August 17, 1896, Bridget Driscoll, a woman in her mid-forties from Croydon, was crossing a terrace on the grounds of the Crystal Palace in south London with her teenage daughter and a friend. A car operated by the Anglo-French Motor Carriage Company, which was giving demonstration rides to the public, struck her. She suffered a fatal head injury and is remembered as the first pedestrian in Britain known to have been killed by a motor car.
The driver, Arthur Edsall, said he had been going about 4 miles per hour. Some witnesses described a much faster, alarming pace. After an inquest lasting roughly six hours, the jury returned a verdict of accidental death, and the coroner reportedly voiced the hope that such a thing would never happen again.
The timing was striking. For decades, British law had kept self-propelled vehicles to walking speed under the so-called Locomotive Acts, including the well-known requirement that a person walk ahead of the vehicle. The Locomotives on Highways Act 1896, which raised the limit for light vehicles to 14 miles per hour and dropped the walking escort, took effect on November 14, 1896, just three months after Driscoll’s death.
1899: Henry Bliss on Central Park West
Three years later, on September 13, 1899, Henry Hale Bliss, a 69-year-old real estate dealer, stepped down from a streetcar at West 74th Street and Central Park West in Manhattan. An electric taxicab driven by Arthur Smith struck him, crushing his head and chest. Bliss died at Roosevelt Hospital the next morning and is recognized as the first person killed in a motor vehicle collision in the United States.
Smith said a large truck had forced him toward the streetcar. He was arrested and charged with manslaughter but was acquitted after the court concluded he had not acted with malice or negligence. A century later, in 1999, a plaque was dedicated at the corner to mark the event.
How Negligence Law Met the Automobile
Neither case produced a famous court ruling, but both show how the law approached the new machines. There was no special “car law.” Instead, judges and juries reached for principles already used for runaway horses, carriages and streetcars.
At the heart of those principles is negligence: the failure to use the care a reasonably careful person would use in the same situation. To hold someone responsible, a claimant generally has to show four things:
- Duty – the person owed others a duty to act with reasonable care;
- Breach – the person fell short of that standard;
- Causation – the shortfall actually caused the harm; and
- Damages – real injury or loss resulted.
Both early inquiries turned on breach. In London, the inquest heard conflicting accounts of the car’s speed but concluded the death was an accident. In New York, the manslaughter charge failed because the court was not convinced Smith had been careless. In 1896 and 1899, there were few written rules telling a driver how fast to go or where to yield, so fact-finders had little beyond ordinary common sense to measure conduct against.
What It Means for California Drivers Today
The basic question asked in 1896 and 1899, whether the driver acted with reasonable care, is still the central question in most California crash cases. California Civil Code section 1714 states the general rule that everyone is responsible for injuries caused by a lack of ordinary care in managing their own person or property, and that includes driving a car.
What has changed is how much guidance exists. Today, the Vehicle Code sets detailed duties, many of them designed to protect pedestrians like Driscoll and Bliss. For example, Vehicle Code section 21950 requires drivers to yield to pedestrians in marked or unmarked crosswalks at intersections and to use due care around them, while also telling pedestrians not to step suddenly into the path of a close vehicle.
A few other points are important for people injured in California today:
- Fault can be shared. California follows pure comparative negligence, adopted by the California Supreme Court in Li v. Yellow Cab Co. (1975). An injured person’s recovery may be reduced by his or her own share of fault, but it is not eliminated.
- Criminal and civil cases are separate. Like Arthur Smith, a driver may never be convicted of a crime, yet still face a civil claim, where the burden of proof is lower.
- Time limits apply. Under Code of Civil Procedure section 335.1, the general deadline to file a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit is two years, and shorter deadlines can apply to claims involving public entities.
More than 125 years after the first traffic deaths, cars are faster, roads are busier and the rules are far more detailed. But the core idea the early inquiries reached for, that drivers must take reasonable care for the people around them, remains the foundation of California car accident law.
Injured in a car accident? The history in this series shows how California law came to protect people hurt by careless drivers and defective vehicles. If you or a family member has been injured, the Law Office of Sean Keshishyan in Glendale offers free consultations. Call (818) 246-6934 or send us a message.
This article is for general information only and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Laws change and every situation is different. Please speak with a qualified attorney about your specific circumstances.
