Short answer. Usually not entirely. Article 1761 does place a duty on the passenger: he must observe the diligence of a good father of a family to avoid injury to himself. But a passenger's own carelessness ordinarily reduces the carrier's liability rather than erasing it, unless that carelessness was the sole, proximate cause of the injury.
What the law says
The passenger must observe the diligence of a good father of a family to avoid injury to himself.
Civil Code, Article 1761 — Passenger's Own Diligence. Read the full provision →
The passenger has a duty of care too
Article 1761 states the passenger's side of the bargain: the passenger must observe the diligence of a good father of a family to avoid injury to himself. A passenger is not entitled to behave recklessly and then place every consequence on the carrier. 'Diligence of a good father of a family' is the law's ordinary standard of reasonable care, the caution a sensible person takes for their own safety. So a passenger who rides on the running board, leans out of a moving vehicle, or ignores clear safety instructions has failed a duty the law expressly puts on him. The question is what that failure does to the carrier's responsibility.
Contributory negligence mitigates, it does not excuse
The important point is that a passenger's own negligence does not, by itself, hand the carrier a clean escape. A common carrier is bound to a very high degree of care for its passengers, and where its negligence combines with the passenger's, the usual result is that the passenger's contributory negligence reduces the damages the carrier must pay, not that it wipes the liability out. The law apportions responsibility rather than treating any carelessness by the passenger as a complete defense. So 'the passenger was careless too' is typically an argument about how much the carrier pays, not about whether it pays at all.
When the passenger's own act is decisive
There is a line, though. If the passenger's own negligence was not merely a contributing factor but the proximate and sole cause of the injury, the real and immediate reason it happened, then the carrier may not be liable, because the harm did not flow from any failure on its part. Between these poles sits the ordinary case, where both were at fault and the loss is shared. Which situation you are in is a factual question about causation: whether the carrier's want of care actually helped bring about the injury, or whether the passenger's conduct alone accounts for it.
What this means after an accident
For an injured passenger, the practical message is not to assume that a moment of your own carelessness bars any claim; contributory fault usually diminishes rather than defeats recovery against a carrier held to a high standard of care. For the carrier, Article 1761 is a genuine but limited shield: it can reduce exposure where the passenger ignored ordinary care, but it does not convert every passenger lapse into a total defense. Because the outcome turns on causation and on comparing each side's negligence, the facts of how the injury happened, witnessed, recorded, and preserved early, are what decide how the responsibility is divided.