Some readers of this site will know of the wonderful books of Misleading Cases written by A P Herbert, which cast a wry satirical eye on the application of legal principles to real life.

See for example his impeccable reasoning in the legendary case of Fardell v Potts, which analyses the legal concept of the reasonable man and concludes that at Common Law a reasonable woman does not exist.

A P Herbert also had a lot to say about motor cars. He pointed out that if someone turned up at a gathering elbowing people out of the way and shouting Parp Parp to force a way through the throng, that bullying aggressive person would be shunned by polite society.

Yet once that person was out on the public highway and inside a heavy fast car, everyone was expected indeed to defer and move aside briskly, however rude and aggressive the driver might be.

Hence the case Haddock v Thwaile, where a pedestrian sues a motorist. If someone brings on to a public road a wild beast that escapes, Haddock contends, they must answer for all the damage "which is the natural consequence of its escape".

The judge takes Haddock’s side. A motor car should in law, he pronounces, be regarded as a wild beast – a comparison made all the more apt by the size of the offending engine (45 horsepower).

What pedestrian could cope with 45 horses tethered together, galloping at full speed past a frequented crossroads? "The ordinary walking citizen cannot be expected to calculate to a nicety the speed, direction and future conduct of such monsters, for not even their own drivers can do that."

Not a trivial legal arugument:

… in Haddock v. Thwaile, where the Court of Appeal extended strict liability under Rylands v. Fletcher to motor-cars on the highway, and – carried away on a tide of Luddite eloquence – revived and extended the law of deodand by ordering the unfortunate motorist’s car to be destroyed.

Nowadays it is almost forgotten that this story is nearly based on fact. Before the First World War, at the dawn of the motor age, the English courts came within a whisker of imposing strict liability upon the owner of a motor-car for all the damage which it causes in use.

All of which is a long-winded way of suggesting that hard-pressed cyclists on our busy roads might want to invest in a few of these.