I am willing to make a civil non-liability defense for Chongqing bus "trash woman" — a personal take on the bus plunging incident.

After parts of the video from inside the Chongqing bus were exposed, public outrage was hard to quell. The unruly female passenger was branded with the notorious label of “trash woman,” drawing an unending wave of condemnation. Many outside observers said that although she is dead and thus exempt from criminal liability, she cannot escape civil liability, and her obligation to pay compensation is indispensable.

The Chongqing Wanzhou bus crash that touched the hearts of hundreds of millions (Image source: internet)

Can this be established at the legal level? In the author's view, the crime of endangering public safety by dangerous means is a conduct crime and does not require the actor to have direct intent. As long as the "garbage woman" committed an act that created a specific danger to public safety, criminal liability should be pursued regardless of the consequences. It is only because she has died that she has escaped criminal punishment. Although there is criminal liability, based on the currently public bus interior video and the external vehicle dashcam video, the "garbage woman" does not need to bear civil liability for the bus falling into the water, nor do her heirs need to provide compensation within the scope of the inherited estate.

Cartoon: Female passenger throwing a tantrum (Image source: internet)

From the external vehicle dashcam footage, the bus made a sharp left turn, and based on the brake lights, there was no sign of braking. After the bus was salvaged, the court confirmed that the vehicle was in good condition with no malfunctions. According to the bus interior video, the sharp left turn occurred because the driver turned the steering wheel a full rotation to the left within two seconds. During these fatal two seconds, the "trash woman" did not appear in the frame, and the steering wheel, accelerator, and brake were all under the driver's complete control.

Simulation diagram of the Chongqing Wanzhou bus crash scene (Image source: internet)

Determining causation in civil law requires us to ascertain whose act caused a particular harmful consequence, so as to determine who should bear liability. In other words, we must take a given harmful consequence as the starting point, intercept the chain of causation, and trace backward to find the specific cause that gave rise to that consequence. In this case, the harmful consequence is the bus plunging into the river. One step back, the established cause is the bus making a sharp left turn. Taking that as the consequence and going one step further back, the established cause is the driver turning the steering wheel one full rotation to the left. Taking that as the consequence and going further back, we leave the analysis of physical acts and must analyze the driver’s state of mind——there are currently three views: first, the driver intended to drive off the bridge; second, the driver merely intended to cause an ordinary accident; third, the driver made an erroneous judgment about the vehicle’s position and direction (many experienced drivers consider this simply impossible, and the author holds the same view)——this is a multiple-choice question to which there will never be even a relatively certain answer.

Simulation of the driving trajectory of the bus that fell into the river in Wanzhou, Chongqing (Image source: internet)

Causation requires temporal sequence. It is true that there was a temporal sequence between the trashy woman’s verbal abuse and physical assault of the driver and the emergence of a certain thought in the driver’s mind. However, merely because one phenomenon occurs after another, concluding that the two have a causal relationship is simply erroneous. Moreover, a thought is only an internal cause of a phenomenon and is not equivalent to the phenomenon itself——the thought “I want to do it” does not necessarily produce the phenomenon “I did it.” The trashy woman is not Yuri from Red Alert; she cannot, by creating one phenomenon, directionally alter the driver’s thoughts. Regardless of what thought the driver held during those fatal two seconds, there is no causal relationship between the prior phenomenon (the trashy woman’s verbal abuse and physical assault) and the emergence of that thought, and even less of a causal relationship between the prior phenomenon (the trashy woman’s verbal abuse and physical assault) and the phenomenon that occurred after that thought emerged (the driver turning the steering wheel to the left).
 

The wreckage of the bus retrieved from the water (Image source: internet)

When netizens discussed this case online, those who believed the woman should bear civil liability cited this example: "If Party B loudly curses Party A, causing Party A to become angry and suffer a rise in blood pressure that leads to death, can you say Party B's act has no causal relationship whatsoever with Party A's death? Can you say Party B's act is not the cause of Party A's death?" This is a typical case of substituting one scenario to substitute one concept. In a "death by anger" case, what forms a causal relationship with Party B's cursing (Phenomenon One) is the rise in blood pressure (Phenomenon Two). These two phenomena are not connected through a person's thoughts at all——joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness all cause mammals to secrete more adrenaline, resulting in elevated blood pressure. To put it plainly, if you agitate a cat, even the cat's blood pressure rises. In this case, beating and insulting the driver would cause the driver's blood pressure to rise, but would not cause the driver to turn the steering wheel one full circle to the left——when a cat's blood pressure rises, does it then walk while veering to the left?

In short, the trash woman violated criminal law but escaped criminal liability only because she died. However, the causal chain of "the trash woman insulted and assaulted the driver >> the driver turned the steering wheel one full turn to the left >> the vehicle veered left and plunged into the river" does not exist. Therefore, the trash woman should not bear civil compensation liability to the other passengers, the driver, or the bus company.

(This article only represents the author's personal views and does not reflect the stance of the firm.)
 

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