However, mere presence at a place is not usually determinative. Berry v. Sugar Notch Borough, 191 Pa. 345, 43 A. 240; Bonnier v. Chicago, B. Q. R. Co., 2 Ill.2d 606, 119 N.E.2d 254; Cosgrove v. Shusterman, 129 Conn. 1, 26 A.2d 471. The fact that the injured person placed himself in a dangerous position will defeat his recovery only when the negligence which injured him can reasonably be considered as having been included in the risk to which his position exposed him.

In the Kinderavich case, supra, we said (p. 95): "Properly understood, to say that conduct is a condition rather than a cause of an accident means no more than that it is a remote and not a proximate cause, `a remote circumstance which merely gave rise to the occasion for the injury.'" The court stated the rule of proximate cause correctly, reviewed the claims of the parties as to the negligence of the defendants and the contributory negligence of Szela, and instructed the jury to apply the rule to the evidence upon which these claims were based. Mahoney v. Beatman, supra, 195; Maltbie, Conn. App. Proc. 87, 88. This was proper and sufficient. Furthermore, any attempt to distinguish between cause and condition would have been improper in this case. Kinderavich v. Palmer, supra, 95; Cosgrove v. Shusterman, 129 Conn. 1, 9, 26 A.2d 471; Edgecomb v. Great Atlantic Pacific Tea Co., 127 Conn. 488, 490, 18 A.2d 364. The defendants requested the court to charge that there was no evidence from which the jury could find the life expectancy or state of health of Szela "after the instant of his collision with the [bridge] and before the instant of his collision" with the defendants' vehicle, or determine whether his injuries were proximately caused by the collision with the bridge or by the collision with that vehicle.

An exhaustive statement on the question of proximate cause is contained in our Supreme Court decision of Kinderavich vs. Palmer, 127 Conn. 85, and cases therein cited. The principle therein enunciated was adhered to and further clarified in Cosgrove vs. Shusterman, 129 Conn. 1. From a careful study of these cases it would seem that the defendant Sibley can escape liability only if the negligence of Mallahan, independently of anything done by him, was the sole proximate cause of the plaintiff's injuries.

The facts gave rise to a strong inference, reasonably to be drawn by the jury, that the defendant operator, after passing the stop sign, suddenly thought of having passed it, and, as suddenly, applied the brakes. The defendant has made the further claim of assumption of risk — that riding backwards while standing in the body of the truck, a vehicle not designed for the transportation of passengers, he should have foreseen the risk of injury which was involved by so riding. The court in Cosgrove vs. Shusterman, 129 Conn. 1, 7, said: "As regards injuries due to the ordinary incidents of traffic conditions, that would probably be so. But where the injuries are brought about by reason of unusual circumstances not ordinarily incident to traffic conditions, the injuries may not be the normal or natural result of the negligence. For example, were the injuries due to the sudden breaking of the steering gear of a car passing on a course far enough from the Shusterman car so that except for this occurrence the decedent would not have been injured, or to his being struck by a passing car as he leaned back to avoid an attempt by Shusterman to push him off, it could properly be found that the happening was one out of the natural train of cause and effect as regards the decedent's negligence in riding as he did, and so that this negligence was not the proximate cause of his injury.