Gorringe v Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council [2004] UKHL 15; [2004] 1 WLR 1057

Gorringe (G) appealed against a decision that the local authority did not have a duty to place road markings or to erect signs warning motorists to slow down on a particular stretch or road. G was seriously injured in an accident which had occurred on the crest of a hill where no markings or signs warned of the road dangers. Previously, the word ‘slow’ had been marked on the road but this was no longer visible at the time of the accident. G, whilst driving within the correct speed limit, collided with a bus. G claimed that the local authority had caused the accident by failing to give drivers proper warning of the dangers on the stretch of road.

• Did the local authority fail to maintain the road according to the Highways Act 1980 s.41
• Is there a duty of care at common law under the Road Traffic Act 1988 s.39.

The House of Lords dismissed the appeal. The highway maintenance duty concerned the physical condition of the road and did not extend to the additional warning or marking asserted. The authority's road-safety functions did not themselves create a common-law duty to provide that benefit to individual motorists. The court distinguished making an existing situation worse from failing to make it safer through an additional measure. The absence of a warning was therefore not enough to establish liability on the basis advanced. The decision does not give road authorities immunity from negligent positive acts or other recognised duties; it rejects deriving this particular duty merely from statutory powers and functions.

A public authority's statutory road-safety functions do not by themselves create a common-law duty to warn individual motorists. The duty to maintain the highway's physical condition is distinct from providing additional warnings or markings to improve safety.

Gorringe clarifies the relationship between public duties and private negligence claims. A statutory responsibility to promote road safety is not automatically enforceable through damages by everyone who would benefit from better signs. Robinson later explains this within the ordinary omissions principle. The case does not protect an authority which creates a new danger or breaches an established maintenance duty; it requires a legally sound basis for the particular obligation alleged.