SPEED. The test of safe speed is wheth er it is such as allows the vessel to comply with the duty imposed on her and to avoid collision with other vessels in the situations in which she may reasonably expect to find them ; The Luckenbach, 50 Fed. 129, 1 C. C. A. 489, 8 U. S. App. 9.
In a fog a vessel is bound to observe un usual caution and to maintain only such rate of speed as will enable her to come to a standstill by reversing her engines at full speed, before she shall collide with a vessel which she may see; The Laurence, 54 Fed. 542, 4 C. C. A..501, 8 U. S. App. 312.
A vessel running fifteen knots an hour, when she strikes a fog bank, has not com plied with the statutory requirements to go at moderate speed ; The Saale, 63 Fed. 478, 11 C. C. A. 302, 26 U. S. App. 164.
Charter authority to enact and enforce such local, police, sanitary and other regula tions as do not conflict with genera] laws, em powers a municipality to require railroads running through its limits to adopt such pre cautions as to speed of trains as may be need ed for the safety of the public ; Cincinnati, N. 0. & T. P. R. Co. v. Corn., 126 Ky. 712, 104 S. W. 771, 17 L. R. A. (N. S.) 561. This extends to interstate trains in the absence of congressional action; Erb v. Morasch, 177 U. S. 584, 20 Sup. Ct. 819, 44 L. Ed. 897.
An ordinance limiting the speed of trains on an interstate railway which carries Unit ed States mail, to 10 miles an hour within a city, is not void as imposing an unreasonable restriction upon interstate commerce and the speedy transportation of the mail ; Peter son v. State, 79 Neb. 132, 112 N. W. 306, 14 L. R. A. (N. S.) 292, 126 Am. St. Rep. 651.
Running a railroad train 50 miles an hour over an ordinary country road crossing, for which the statutory signals have been given, is not negligence per se; Lake Shore & M. S. R. Co. v. Barnes, 166 Ind. 7, 76 N. E. 629, L. R. A. (N. S.) 778 ; mere speed is not enough to charge the company with negli gence; Lehigh Val. R. Co. v. Dupont, 128
Fed. 840, 64 C. C. A. 478.
Operating a street car at a speed in excess of that prescribed by ordinance is of itself no evidence of negligence in an action for in juries caused by collision between a car and a pedestrian ; Ford's Adm'r v. Ry., 124 Ky. 488, 99 S. W. 355, 8 L. R. A. (N. S.) 1093, 124 Am. St. Rep. 412. Consideration must be given to the character of the train, the devic es which were employed to guard against accident, the condition of the roadbed, the sharpness of the curves and any other cir cumstances which would show whether the speed tended to increase such natural dan gers ; Pennsylvania Co. v. Newmeyer, 129 Ind. 401, 28 N. E. 860. But it is held that a railroad company is guilty of a nuisance in running its trains across a much used street in a town, wilfully, habitually and for an unreasonable length of time, at such an unreasonable and unsafe rate of speed as to endanger the lives and safety of persons us ing the crossing without customary and usu al warning signals ; Cincinnati, N. 0. & T. P. R. Co. v. Corn., 126 Ky. 712, 104 S. W. 771, 17 L. R. A. (N. S.) 561. If in view of all the at tending circumstances the servants in charge of the train knew, or by the exercise of a very blgh degree of care and foresight ought to have known, that the rate of speed at which the train was running tended to crease the dangers which are naturally inci dent to railway travel, the railroad company would be guilty of negligence ; Illinois Cent. R. Co. v. Leiner, 202 Ill. 624, 67 N. E. 398, 95 Am. St. •Rep. 266 ; Louisville, N. A. & 0.
R. Co. v. Jones, 108 Ind. 551, 9 N. E. 476; Mitchell v. R. Co., 87 Cal. 62, 25 Pac. 245, 11 L. R. A. 130; Lynn v. Southern Pac. Co., 103 Cal. 7, 36 Pac. 1018, 24 L. R. A. 710 ; St. Louis, I. M. & S. R. Co. v. Stewart, 68 Ark. 606, 61 S. W. 169, 42 Am. St. Rep. 311; • 2 Hutchinson, Carriers, § 926.
Statements in regard to speed are mere ex pressions of opinion; Borneman v. R. Co., 19