Coach Driver Not to Blame for Crushing Student

When a personal injury claim is made, the first issue the court must decide is whose fault it was that the injury that is the subject of the claim arose (and where that is shared, the respective proportions of the blame).

A student who was gravely injured when his legs and feet were run over by a coach has failed in a bid for £500,000 in compensation after a judge found that his own 'extremely foolhardy' conduct was the sole cause of the accident.

The young man had dashed into the road in an attempt to catch up with the coach, which had left him behind. He desperately tried to attract the driver's attention but was cast under the wheels as the vehicle turned left. He suffered multiple fractures to both feet and legs and has been left with permanently impaired mobility.

He sued the driver of the coach and the company which employed him. He denied having run into the road and said that he had banged on the doors of the coach and made eye contact with the driver in the seconds before the accident.

The judge expressed sympathy for his 'truly horrific injuries' and for the recurring nightmares that he had suffered since the accident. However, he found that the student had 'convinced himself of a false version of events'. The driver had taken all reasonable care to ensure that it was safe to perform the manoeuvre and there was 'frankly nothing he could do' to avoid the accident. The judge said of the student's conduct, "He ran out over a short distance to catch up with a coach which was in the middle of making its turn. This was an extremely foolhardy thing to do. There came a point where the accident and his injuries were inevitable."