Bus accidents with Flixbus: What is the cause?

Unfortunately, this scenario isn't a new one: A grass-green Flixbus veers off the highway and overturns. Thirty-one people were injured, six seriously, in the accident on the A19 near the Mecklenburg Lake District on Friday night. The driver, as the OZ newspaper reported on Monday , is being investigated for negligent bodily harm. According to police, this was a routine procedure. The cause of the accident is still unclear.

One thing is already clear: The Hamburg-based bus company Umbrella City Line, which was involved as a Flix subcontractor in the horrific bus accident on the A9 near Leipzig in March 2024, resulting in four fatalities, is once again involved. A scandal already erupted in October 2023 when an Umbrella driver was caught driving a bus in Hamburg's city traffic with a blood alcohol level of 2.4 per mille.

A suspicion arises and is repeatedly expressed, especially on social media: Are the accidents possibly due to structural reasons?

Flix's business operates on a platform principle, similar to the ride-hailing service Uber: Flix advertises routes and bundles them on its platform. Subcontractors then handle the trips, including their own buses and drivers. They pay Flix 20 to 30 percent of the ticket revenue. If the bus remains empty, the subcontractors lose out.

At the same time, taking a long-distance bus in Germany now almost inevitably means taking a Flixbus. The Munich-based company not only aims to compete with Deutsche Bahn's long-distance division with its trains, but has had a firm grip on the long-distance bus segment for years. According to Destatis, its market share in Germany was 97 percent in 2024—a monopoly that's hard to come by.

The liberalization of the long-distance bus market in 2013 marked the beginning. Passenger numbers increased ninefold between 2012 and 2015, reaching a record high of 23.2 million. The pandemic then brought a slump, but by 2024, around 10.5 million passengers were on board again. Initially facing fierce competition, Flixbus swallowed one competitor after another and has since long since become the market leader.

But can safety standards be maintained in this way – and under intense price pressure for subcontractors? Flix emphasizes that it has a comprehensive safety concept: safety training is offered, night trips are usually accompanied by an additional driver, and driving and rest times are randomly checked.

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Kristin Zeidler, head of the German Insurance Accident Research (UDV), confirms that the technical safety equipment on buses today is good. "Emergency braking and lane departure warning systems have been mandatory on buses since 2015, and fatigue warning systems have been mandatory for new buses since 2024, and distraction warning systems will also be required starting in 2026," she says. Coach accidents are also generally rare.

But when it happens, many passengers are often affected. "And then whether you're wearing a seatbelt can mean the difference between life and death," says Zeidler, criticizing the fact that the existing seatbelt requirement is rarely enforced. "Bus drivers point it out, but nothing more."

Evacuation routes are also problematic: If the bus is on its side after an accident, the doors are no longer available as escape routes. Roof hatches and rear windows are too small for a quick evacuation of passengers. Therefore, larger roof hatches are important, and above all, the windshield, as the fastest escape route, can be opened from the inside as standard.

It remains unclear whether communication between passengers and bus drivers was possible during the accident on the A19, and how the safety measures were communicated. The two drivers, who work for the Hamburg-based subcontractor Umbrella City Line, speak neither German nor sufficient English. They are Georgian, and an interpreter had to be called in during the accident investigation to allow them to be questioned in detail. Flix responded that the information could also be provided via recorded messages in multiple languages.

A representative of the Hamburg Driving Instructors Association nevertheless sees a "large gray area" – including when it comes to driver licenses. In Germany, the corresponding training, including the exam, costs 10,000 to 15,000 euros, and the professional driver qualification alone costs 3,000 euros. In addition, there are paid safety training courses every five years. A hefty investment.

Umbrella City Line refers RND's inquiry about the bus drivers' driving licenses back to Flix. This leaves it unclear whether the Georgians are employed and therefore require an EU driver's license – or whether they were making a transit trip. In both cases, however, they must adhere to the driving and rest times.

Flix emphasizes the mandatory training and continuing education for drivers. Subcontractors are responsible for paying for these. Umbrella City Line, in turn, is a subsidiary of Prague-based Umbrella Mobility. Its website states that drivers from India, the Philippines, and Georgia are recruited and can obtain their EU driver's license in the Czech Republic – officially for driving there. However, the training conditions there are different than in Germany, where a corresponding driver training course requires 90 hours of driving, says the representative of the driving instructors' association. "This is a known problem and a major concern."

The service workers' union Verdi, which also fundamentally represents the interests of bus drivers, dismisses the issue of long-distance buses. Verdi is very poorly positioned in the long-distance bus and private bus sectors. These are often small companies that are under immense financial pressure, says Andreas Schackert from Verdi's Bus/Rail division. "Part of Flixbus's system is to award contracts to the cheapest companies." The proportion of migrant workers there is high, and the pay is often poor. Schackert admits: "This is a blind spot for us."