What is the speed of a truck driver's vehicle at the time of the collision?

As to the speed of the defendant’s truck, the evidence was that it was going approximately 45 miles per hour prior to the accident and was proceeding at less than 35 miles per hour at the time of impact. I do not think that such speeds were excessive. The defendant’s speed could only be deemed excessive if the court were to hold that the defendant driver should have been proceeding at a speed which would permit him to stop when the plaintiff applied his brakes after seeing the deer. To hold such speeds to be excessive would place on the defendant a duty to drive in a manner which would anticipate a deer to be on the highway. According to Fontaine v. Thompson et al., supra, a person drives on a highway in such a manner as to avoid those objects which can be foreseen and which might cause an accident. In the present case, the presence of the deer could not be foreseen by the defendant driver.

There are one or two facts in this case which, I believe, point out that the defendant’s speed was not excessive immediately prior to impact. The evidence is that the truck operated by the defendant weighed between 70,000 and 72,000 pounds and in spite of such weight, the said unit travelled only 200 feet from the point of impact. Secondly, the defendant’s unit entered the north ditch of the highway at a speed which did not cause it to upset. Thirdly, there was no evidence that after gearing down and applying the air brakes to both the truck and trailer that the unit went out of control in the sense that it skidded from one side of the highway to the other prior to impact. On the question of the defendant’s speed, the words of Maclean, J.A., in Fontaine v. Thompson et al., supra, at p. 626, have application. These are: . . . Indeed in an emergency such as faced the driver here, who is to say that the accident would not have happened even if the driver had been proceeding at a much slower speed. The case of Engele v. Poss (1959), 1958 CanLII 196 (SK CA), 16 D.L.R.(2d) 430, is likewise authority for the proposition that the test to determine whether the defendant driver was negligent is the test of foreseeability. This is the case of a steer confronting a driver on the highway. Martin, C.J., at p. 432, writes: I cannot agree that the defendant was negligent; he could not, as a reasonable man, be expected to anticipate the presence of a domstic (sic) animal on the highway. It was his duty to take reasonable care under the circumstances to avoid acts and omissions which he could reasonably foresee would likely cause injury to persons driving on the highway.