Arulanandon J:

In this case the plaintiff claimed damages from the defendant for personal injuries and other losses suffered by him as a result of an accident where the car driven by the defendant collided with his motor-cycle which he was riding.

According to the plaintiff he was riding his motorcycle Reg. No. YD 7328 on his correct side of the road on Perak Road from the direction of Dato Kramat Road towards Jelutong Road at about 8 pm on 12 August 1973 when the defendant so negligently drove her car Reg. No. PA 996 that it came onto his side of the road and knocked into him. According to the plaintiff he was riding his motor-cycle about eight the left side of the road and there were other cyclists to his left. He said he could not say why the car swerved on to his side of the road but later corrected himself in cross-examination after being reminded about his statement of claim and evidence in the lower Court that the defendant overtook a trishaw. He was also cross-examined at length about the discrepancies in his police report and evidence in the Court below about the exact location of the accident but these discrepancies are not material because the issue before the Court is whether accident was caused by the negligence of the defendant and the exact location of the accident is evidenced by the sketch-plan.

Plaintiff was supported in his allegations of negligence on the part of the defendant by PW5 who is a trishaw pedlar who was plying his trade in the same vicinity and witnessed the accident. According to this witness he was riding his trishaw on the same road but in the opposite direction when defendant overtook his trishaw and then overtook some cyclists and in doing so encroached onto the path of the plaintiff and collided with him. This witness was again cross- examined at length about minor discrepancies about distances but I saw no reason to reject the substantive part of his evidence for I was satisfied he was telling the truth to the best of his recollection to the Court. He was unshaken in his evidence that the defendant's car overtook him, then swerved to the left and then in overtaking, two cyclists ahead swerved sharply to the right, encroached onto the path of the plaintiff and collided with the plaintiff's motor-cycle.

The sketch-plan which was included in the Agreed Bundle of Documents marked 'A' on pages 5 and 6 is of some assistance in establishing where the accident took place. According to the sketch-plan, the Perak Road at the scene of the accident is 29 ft 07 in wide. There is no centre white line. 'K' is the area where broken glass has fallen and according to the evidence the front offside headlight of the defendant's car was broken and the glass shattered so it could be assumed that the glass was from the headlamp of her car. 'K' is quite near 'G' the point at which the scratch-mark on the road commences. The scratch-mark ends at 'H' where the motor-cycle was lying. The reasonable conclusion one has to come to is that the scratch- mark was made after the motor-cycle had fallen down after the collision. The point 'G' is nine ft 11 in from the left edge of the road facing Jelutong, i.e., the left side of the road on which the plaintiff was proceeding. The road being 29 ft 07 in the middle of the road would be about 14 ft five in from either edge. Hence the collision definitely took place on the plaintiff's side of the road and for that to have happened the defendant must have encroached onto the plaintiff's path. The position of the car in the sketch-plan is meaningless as the car was moved after the accident and neither its distance from the edge of the road nor its line of direction can be of any assistance to the Court.

The defendant in her evidence stated that at the time and place of the accident she was driving ber car at about 8' or 9' from the edge of the road on her correct side, and that she was driving at about 10-20 mph. She further stated that there were cyclists and motor-