Man loses €60,000 personal injury claim after falling when Luas train stopped suddenly – TheLiberal.ie – Our News, Your Views

Man loses €60,000 personal injury claim after falling when Luas train stopped suddenly




Luas pilots would never get anywhere if they had to slow down every time they see someone approaching the tracks, Judge Terence O’Sullivan told the Civil Circuit Court.

Dismissing a €60,000 personal injury claim from a passenger who was thrown forward when a driver was forced to apply the emergency brake, Judge O’Sullivan said it would be unreasonable to expect the Luas to creep slowly through Dublin. and its surroundings.

Ordered taxi driver Michael Keane, 39, of Blackhorse Grove, Blackhorse Avenue, Dublin, to pay Transdev Dublin Light Rail Limited’s legal fees in defense of a case in which a runner, swerving onto the tram, caused emergency braking.

Barrister Simon Kearns, who appeared with Caitriona Kinane of Corrigan and Corrigan Solicitors, told the court that Luas drivers, which carry 44 million passengers a year, have been instructed to apply the emergency brake in potentially dangerous situations.

He said that in the court case, the driver slammed on the brakes when a jogger stepped off the sidewalk seconds from the oncoming streetcar.

Mr. Keane, who claimed to have brought two previous personal injury claims and obtained compensation of €22,500, told Mr. Kearns that, as a taxi driver, he accepted that there would be emergencies on the roads, but in such situations he would have slowed down.

He said he was riding the streetcar during St. Patrick’s weekend 2018 and was thrown forward from a side seat of the streetcar when he stopped suddenly, injuring his neck and right shoulder.

Judge O’Sullivan, after seeing the runner several times drive off the curb within inches of the streetcar tracks, said that Mr. Keane was very unlucky, but when public service vehicles were forced to apply the brakes there would have been an emergency. a certain amount of interruption.

“I do not think it is reasonable to expect tram drivers to slow down to a crawl when someone approaches the vehicle. From the CCTV I have watched leading up to this incident there were at least two instances when the driver might have been justified in hitting the anchors and particularly in one case when a woman and child crossed ahead of the tram” Judge O’Sullivan said, reported RTE.

The runner involved had clearly run off the pavement to such an extent that prudent driving would have required the driver to apply the emergency brake as instructed in training.

“The jogger is probably more responsible in liability to Mr Keane but he is not before the court. I cannot in all conscience hold the defendant negligent in the circumstances,” Judge O’Sullivan said, according to RTE.

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