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| Cone v. City of Detroit, 157 NW 417 (1916). The plaintiff's husband was hit and killed by a fire truck. The decedent was standing in the doorway of a store when a fire truck on its way to a fire hit a depression in the road. The driver lost control, went over the sidewalk and hit the decedent. Judgment for plaintiff affirmed. From the court's opinion: "It is also argued by counsel for the city that the statute which imposes the obligation upon the municipality to keep and maintain its highways in a condition reasonably safe and fit for public travel should be construed so as to refer only to ordinary vehicles which were in use at the time of the passage of the statute, which at that time were wagons or carriages drawn by horses, and should not be held to apply to automobiles. It cannot now well be disputed that automobiles and automobile trucks are ordinary vehicles. In fact, they have become so ordinary that it is rather unusual to see vehicles which were in use at the time the statute was passed on the streets of a large city like Detroit. It would be a strange conclusion to say that the municipality should not be bound to keep its highways in condition reasonably fit for travel for vehicles which become from time to time the ordinary vehicles of travel. "In the case of Leslie v. City of Grand Rapids ... it was held that the statute did not require municipalities to so construct their streets and repair them as to secure safety to bicycles, on the theory that the bicycle was not such an ordinary vehicle as was contemplated by the statute. But we do not think that the doctrine should be carried any farther than it was carried in that case, as was said by this court in Lee v. City of Port Huron ..." |
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