The opinion
JUSTICE GEIGER, dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. In this case, the plaintiff’s decedent was killed in an automobile accident that occurred under wet driving conditions late in January; dense fog and complete darkness further complicated the circumstances. Under these extreme driving conditions, the decedent’s plaintiff’s car crossed over the opposite lane of a 55-mile-per-hour highway and overturned.
Based on those facts I, unlike the majority, find this case to be analogous to Long v. Soderquist (1984), 126 Ill. App. 3d 1059, 1064 . In Long, we affirmed summary judgment for the defendants, finding that it was undisputed that the plaintiffs’ vehicle had slipped on an icy bridge at the crest of a hill and was therefore out of control when it collided with the defendants’ standing automobiles. ( 126 Ill. App. 3d at 1064 .) Thus, we found that regardless of their precise placement, the defendants’ vehicles could not have been a proximate cause of the collision.
Given the harsh driving conditions here, plus the fact that the decedent driver’s automobile crossed over a lane of traffic and a five- to seven-foot-wide shoulder before it came to the township’s steep ditch, I cannot agree with the majority’s observation that a reasonable fact finder in this case could infer that the plaintiff’s decedent was in control of his automobile’s movement when he drove onto the opposite shoulder of the road. Rather, I would find that the record shows as a matter of law that the decedent’s automobile was out of control before it reached the ditch. The ditch here, like the defendants’ automobiles in Long, was a mere condition connected with the accident, not a proximate cause. Accordingly, I would affirm the trial court’s dismissal with prejudice.