During your bus trips, companies have the right to abandon you on the side of the road if they wish, under certain conditions.
Each year, hundreds of travelers are abandoned on the side of the road. In the dark or in the rain, they return home on their own means, regardless of the price of their race. In February, Sylvie was the victim of one of these trips to nightmarish accents. At the age of 79, she was forgotten in the middle of the night on a highway area. But how is it possible? On a trip with Flixbus, she would have taken advantage of a driver’s stop to stretch her legs. On his return, ten minutes later, his vehicle was gone!
The local press is full of similar stories. And for good reason: transport companies assume to send their buses to leave without all travelers. They even gave a name for these shipwrecked people: the “forgotten passengers”. “At Blablacar, they are about 1 every 10,000” trips, specifies Aurélien Gandois, director of business bus activities, in UFC-Que Choisir.
This position, which can be criticized on the moral level, is nonetheless legal. The practice appears in fact under the general conditions of bus companies. Those of Flixbus, for example, stipulate that “rolling or support staff is authorized to continue the trip if a passenger is not back to the bus once the break has been elapsed, and is not responsible for his absence after the time of break indicated”.
As a justification, the spokesperson for the Charles Billiard company evokes time constraints: “These are regular lines, with passengers who have interconnections. If (at the end of the break, editor’s note) we start to wait for the one who wants to finish his cigarette or who hesitates too long between buying kitkat or m & m’s, delays accumulate and the organization no longer holds”.
Despite everything, rescue procedures have been implemented by carriers to guarantee the safety of users. “We take care of the journey of forgotten people, either by calling a taxi, or by raising them on a bus that arrives after,” said Aurélien Gandois, director of Bus activities at Blablacar.
In reality, however, these promises are not always held. In 2020, a passenger of Flixbus found himself “in a t-shirt, in a parking lot in Belgium, to seek help” during a Paris-Amsterdam trip. Abandoned by the company, the traveler was finally brought back by a passing motorist. Upon her return, she decided to attack society in court. Flixbus was ordered to compensate her client up to 550 euros for the material damage (she never recovered her business) and 2050 euros for moral damage.