
	THE ILLEGAL METRIC SIGN THAT CAUSED AN ACCIDENT: The case of Adam Doggett v. Broxbourne Borough Council by Tony Bennett M.A. This report is compiled primarily for the Committee and membership of British Weights and Measures Association (BWMA). During February or March 2001, Mr Adam Doggett, a 36-year-old London Underground tube driver from Ongar, Essex, was driving his young daughter to a party in Tottenham, North London, along a route unfamiliar to him. He approached, from east to west, the level crossing between Dobb’s Weir, Essex, and Hoddesdon, Hertfordshire. The gates were shut to allow a WAGN train to pass on the London Liverpool Street to Cambridge line. To the side of the level crossing is a passageway underneath the railway, routinely used by cars to save time when the crossing is closed. Its height is 4’ 7” - high enough to allow nearly all saloon cars to pass through. Mr Doggett’s car, a Suzuki jeep, was around 4’ 9” in height. Approaching the level crossing, he saw cars using the passageway in both directions. He assumed it would be safe for him to use. The only height sign he saw - and the only one provided - was one saying ‘1.4m’. Metric educated Mr Doggett was metric educated at school. However, in everyday life he doesn’t use metric units and certainly not when it comes to heights. British weights and measures rather than the metric system is in common use at his place of work. He had no idea what ‘1.4m’ meant, i.e. what the equivalent was in feet and inches. As he told us later: “If I’d known the passageway was less than 5 feet in height, I wouldn’t have used it. I know my car’s around 5 feet high. The figures ‘1.4m’ meant absolutely nothing to me”. After entering the passageway, Mr Doggett’s car stuck after scraping the roof of the passageway. He was unable to advance or reverse. He could only extricate himself by letting down the tyres of the car and reversing out. By the time he did so, there were scratch marks made by the concrete ceiling of the passageway all over his car roof. BWMA He assumed he had no claim against anyone over the accident - until chatting the matter over in his local pub with BWMA member and now Committee member Philip Iveyray. He told Mr Doggett that metric-only height signs were illegal and advised him to make a claim. Mr Doggett said he would do so if he had some help. By this time he had not yet had the roof repaired. At its meeting in October 2001, the BWMA Committee kindly agreed to allocate a sum of Ł500 to obtain a barrister’s Opinion on the case, if needed. We assisted him to make a claim. We advised him to get an estimate for the cost of repairing the car roof, which came to Ł442.18. Broxbourne Borough Council admitted that their records showed that at the time of the accident the only heights shown at the entrances to the passageway were in metric units. They further conceded that the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 1994 required that bridge heights must always be shown in feet and inches - although a metric height could be added as an optional extra. In the meantime, in separate correspondence with Active Resistance to Metrication, the Council conceded that there should be a sign in Imperial units at the crossing. Following our letter to them, they promptly erected a sign on each side of the passageway showing the correct height of 4’ 7”. On 24 January 2002 Mr Dawson, Head of the Council’s Construction Services Department, wrote to us saying: “I refer to my letter to you dated 31st December 2001. Having investigated the matter I am now in a position to report [that] both imperial and metric height restriction signs were erected on site during the week commencing 7th January 2002…may I thank you for taking the trouble to write”. Struggle They did not meet the claim without a struggle however. Before paying out, they required to know the answers to several questions , including the reason for the delay in making a claim promptly and whether there were any witnesses. They also attempted to insist on Mr Doggett getting three estimates. It turned out that the Council was not insured against Mr Doggett’s claim since the amount of his claim was below the Council’s insurance policy excess. ARM assisted Mr Doggett with the correspondence throughout. By a letter written for Mr Doggett on 13 April 2002, he threatened to bring a claim in the Small Claims Court if his case was not settled within 14 days (a so-called ‘letter before action’). The Council decided to make payment in full shortly after receiving this letter. Compensation As we know, some Councils take a very relaxed attitude to having erected metric signs, regarding it as a lot of fuss about nothing. A detailed account has been made of this case so that Councils may be reminded that they could face compensation claims if their signing is not in strict accordance with the relevant Road Traffic Regulations. The consequences of misleading motorists by inadequate and illegal signing could be much worse than just a car roof being scraped. Another accident in which a lorry was badly damaged by an incorrect metric height was reported to BWMA and ARM last year. It is not known whether compensation was paid out in that case but on the facts of the case, it appears almost certain that compensation would have been payable. The mistake had been made in attempting to convert an Imperial height into the metric equivalent. Whoever attempted that metric conversion under-calculated the correct metric equivalent by nearly a foot. Earlier this year, a motorist escaped a speeding fine for the simple reason that the road where he was stopped had only one ‘30mph’ sign indicating a speed restriction and there should have been two. Again this emphasises the responsibility on authorities to ensure their signs comply strictly with all relevant regulations. Report by Tony Bennett, Chairman of the Council of Active Resistance to Metrication 66 Chippingfield, HARLOW, Essex, CM17 0DJ Tel: 01279 635789 e-mail – ajsbennett@hotmail.com Report compiled 21 Jun 2002: this report is not copyright