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| Doherty v. Town of Ayer, 83 NE 677 (1908). An automobile driver got stuck in sand on the road and broke the auto pulling it out with help from some horses and men. An automobile is more properly a machine, and not a carriage, within the meaning of Rev. Laws, c. 51, sec. 1. "When towns were first required by law to keep their highways and town ways 'reasonably safe and convenient for travelers, with their horses, teams and carriages at all seasons of the year,' there was no thought of putting upon them such a burden as would be imposed if they were compelled to keep all of these ways in such a condition that automobiles could pass over them safely and conveniently at all seasons. Horses, teams and carriages are grouped together in the statute, and the carriages referred to are those drawn by animal power. There are many highways and town ways that run into remote places and are but little traveled. In some parts of the state that are very sparsely settled there are vast stretches of sandy surface, traversed by roads that are but little used, where the small wheels of a heavy automobile might sometimes encounter as great an obstacle to progress as the plaintiff's vehicle encountered on the smooth level sand at the place of this accident. To be obliged to harden all such roads would be a burden upon towns heavier than could be borne. There are steep mountain roads laid out for the use of but a small part of the public, where, in a heavy rain, water flows down with much force. This must be turned off from the traveled part of the road by high and sharp water bars. It would be unreasonable to require all such roads to be made convenient for travel with automobiles at all seasons. There are also roads that are frozen to a great depth in winter, which sometimes present a surface of very deep soft mud while the ground is thawing in the spring. No reasonable expenditure by towns would be enough to make all such roads convenient for the use of heavy automobiles, with their small wheels, at all seasons. Another difficulty sometimes appears upon such roads when they are suddenly frozen, after having been rutted in a time of deep mud. Such roads could not be made safe and convenient for use by automobiles at such times without entire reconstruction." | ||||
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