So you have paid your fair and are travelling on a bus when the next minute, CRASH, the driver has collided with another vehicle and you sustain injuries as a result.
The ticket says the bus company are not liable for the injuries I have sustained – does this mean I cannot make a claim?
When you buy a ticket for a lift on a bus, you are entering into a contract with them to provide you a lift (carriage). Under the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977, a company providing the service of a carriage cannot ‘dogde’ liability for your injuries as a passenger.
Duty of the driver:
- The driver has a common law duty to take care when driving in order to keep his passengers safe.
- What happens of the driver had to stop as a matter of emergency?
The main reason passengers are injured on public transport is that the driver has to break urgently. This is usually due to driver error such as failing to see the car in front braking – the driver then has to brake harder in order to avoid a collision and even sometimes collides with the vehicle in front resulting in the passengers being thrown about!
Although there is a specific Act that confirms the bus company cannot dodge their liability for your injuries, case law available (which the judge would rely on when deciding your case) seems to protect the driver’s from this liability.
The case law available confirms that as long as the bus driver has acted ‘as a reasonable man would’ when braking, then a passenger will not be able to claim for personal injuries incurred.
Conclusion
Unfortunately, unless you can prove that the driver’s actions were very unreasonable and abnormal for the circumstances, there are very grim chances of your claim for personal injury being successful.
