How have courts treated the issue of a proposed duty of care in a motor vehicle accident case?

Determining whether a proposed duty of care fits within an existing or analogous duty is a matter of precedent: [W]here a case is like another case where a duty has been recognized, one may usually infer that sufficient proximity is present and that if the risk of injury was foreseeable, a prima facie duty of care will arise. Childs v. Desormeaux, 2006 SCC 18, [2006] 1 S.C.R. 643, at para. 15.

When a court relies on an established duty of care, “there are no overriding policy considerations that would [negate] the duty of care”: Livent, at para. 28, citing Cooper v. Hobart, 2001 SCC 79, [2001] 3 S.C.R. 537, at para. 39. The majority in Livent further instructed, at para. 28, that: A consequence of this approach however, is that a finding of proximity based upon a previously established or analogous category must be grounded not merely upon the identity of the parties, but upon examination of the particular relationship at issue in each case. Otherwise, courts risk recognizing prima facie duties of care without any examination of pertinent second-stage residual policy considerations.