Judgment- No automatic consideration for handicapped passenger

OLG Hamm: Passengers must ask bus drivers for caution

Bus drivers do not generally have to pay special attention to disabled passengers. You can always start by bus before the severely handicapped passenger has landed a seat, the Higher Regional Court (OLG) Hamm decided with two on Friday, April 20, 2018, published resolutions (Ref .: 11 U 57/17). However, a duty of special consideration could, exceptionally, exist if the "serious obstruction of the passenger is recognizable" or if the passenger has requested special care.

Thus failed the compensation and pain compensation suit of a handicapped woman from Herne. She is due to a hip damage to 100 percent handicapped. The then 60-year-old woman entered in April 2016 a public transport bus. She showed her trouble-free entry into the bus her ID card with the sign "G" before.

But instead of sitting down immediately on the heavy-disabled seat behind the bus driver, she ran through the bus. Before she had taken a seat, the bus started and it came as it had to come: The woman fell and made a fractured femoral neck.

Among other things, she demanded compensation from the bus driver and the public transport company amounting to 11,500 euros and another 4,000 euros to compensate for budgetary damage. She presented her disability card, so the driver would have had to pay special attention. The driver should have waited until she took a seat.

However, in its decisions of 13 December 2017 and 28 February 2018, the Higher Regional Court upheld the decision rejecting the appeal of the Landgericht Bochum. A passenger must search for a seat immediately after boarding. Here, the woman was but once run by the bus. She also did not ask the bus driver to wait until she took a seat.

The bus driver is not to blame. This must finally pay attention to other road users and driving signals. A duty of particular consideration is exceptional only when it is obvious that the passenger is seriously disabled and at risk.

Here, the woman entered the bus but without problems and also did not take a nearby free seat. Just because she presented a severely handicapped ID card with the mark "G", there is no special obligation to pay attention. Because such a card also get a primarily disturbed in his orientation person, on the seating in a bus not special consideration must be taken. fle / mwo