Short answer. Yes. Article 1761 requires the passenger to observe the diligence of a good father of a family to avoid injury to himself. The carrier's duty of extraordinary diligence does not relieve you of ordinary care for your own safety, and your own negligence can reduce or, if it is the real cause, defeat a claim.
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 too
A common carrier owes its passengers extraordinary diligence, but that is not the whole picture. Article 1761 puts a duty on the passenger's side of the ledger: the passenger must observe the diligence of a good father of a family to avoid injury to himself. The standard is ordinary prudence — the care a reasonable person takes for their own safety — not the heightened standard demanded of the carrier. The two duties sit alongside each other: the carrier must carry you safely, and you must not act carelessly in a way that endangers yourself. The article exists because safety on a journey is not the carrier's responsibility alone.
What ordinary care looks like on a trip
For a passenger, the diligence of a good father of a family means the small, sensible precautions any careful traveller takes. Staying seated while a bus is moving rather than standing near the door, holding the rail on a swaying ferry, heeding the crew's safety instructions and not boarding or alighting from a vehicle still in motion are the ordinary examples. None of this asks the passenger to anticipate the carrier's negligence or to inspect the vehicle. It asks only that the passenger not create, through plain carelessness, the danger that then injures them. The bar is reasonableness, judged in context.
How your own carelessness affects a claim
The reason this duty matters is what happens when it is breached. If a passenger's own negligence contributed to the injury, the law does not simply ignore it. Where the passenger's want of care was the proximate cause of the harm — jumping from a moving bus, for instance — the carrier may not be liable at all, because the injury flowed from the passenger's act rather than from any breach by the carrier. Where the passenger's carelessness merely contributed alongside the carrier's fault, it does not erase the claim but can reduce the damages the passenger recovers. Either way, the passenger's own conduct is part of the inquiry.
If you were hurt on a trip
If you are injured as a passenger, expect the carrier to point to your own conduct, so it is worth being clear-eyed about it. Note what you were doing when the injury happened and whether you had followed the crew's instructions and the ordinary precautions of a careful traveller. That does not shift the carrier's heavy duty to carry you safely — you do not have to prove the carrier was negligent to start with — but your own care is squarely in issue. Keep any record of the incident, witnesses, and the conditions at the time, because the two duties will be weighed together.