5 ms·

Tragic. I, personally, could not sit idly by and watch, or record, anyone suffering without attempting to assist. Consequences be damned, I would hope for the s

• kiba 10y ago
  How do you know it's notable in the first place? Do you have statistics for that?
  • Jtsummers 10y ago
    > I have witnessed a notable increase in single vehicle rollovers under optimum driving conditions on the US highway system [emphasis added] The comment was one of personal experience, what they've witnessed.
  • tunap 10y ago
    I have never looked into any statistics other than personal observation. Sure, correltion != causation. However, I have over 6000 highway driving miles logged so far this year and have witnessed at least a dozen single vehicle rollover incidents, excluding incidents in rain & snow conditions, while in the recent past I could travel 10k miles and never see one. My ASSUMPTION derives from the fact that it is not uncommon to see drivers interacting with their devices (and weaving, and varying velocities) on the highways.
• bnegreve 10y ago
  > I, personally, could not sit idly by and watch, or record, anyone suffering without attempting to assist. We should be careful with this kind of statements. I remember that in Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman describes an experiment which shows that most people don't actually take action when the responsibility is shared among other people. Of course most people think they would.
  • hrnnnnnn 10y ago
    It's called the Bystander Effect, and the most disturbing thing about it is that its strength is in proportion to the number of people present. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect
    • tunap 10y ago
      Yep. Take charge until an authority arrives. Engage the victim, if conscious, ask questions and gather any info you can to give to 1st responder to arrive on scene. Give direct commands to specific peoples. Do NOT make matters worse by moving the injured unless immediate danger is present. Most importantly, educate yourself/certify beforehand. I used my CPR cert once 25 years ago, yet I still renew it every year. Oh yeah, when the pro does arrive, don't take it personally if he/she is brusque or 'rude'. They are sometimes brutally efficient.
      • rsync 10y ago
        Also: do what you can to create, and maintain, a decent ingress into the scene for emergency personnel - clear a hallway, get the doors opened, and keep the way in and out clear.
      • mschuster91 10y ago
        > Oh yeah, when the pro does arrive, don't take it personally if he/she is brusque or 'rude'. They are sometimes brutally efficient. This. Also, for some medical personnel being brusque and (apparently) unattached is the only way for them to not crack under seeing death every day. It's a fucking hard job and I highly respect everyone in the field.
• mikeash 10y ago
  Would you still do that if you had friends or family who had been bankrupted or jailed because they helped a crash victim? It's easy to say that you would help when it's a hypothetical situation. It's much harder to actually do it when the consequences are staring you in the face. Maybe you still would, but you can't really know how you'd react until you've actually been in that situation. Indians are not fundamentally different from you and I. The main difference is the situation they're in.
  • tunap 10y ago
    People are people. Societal norms vary. And yes, I would and have put myself in physical jeopardy assisting people in need. Edit: In the US we have 'Good Samaritan' laws for most of that. It is possible I could do more harm &/or be liable for my actions. Yet, I refuse to not do what I believe is 'right' out of fear. Yeah, my lifestyle & welfare has suffered(sic) for my principles in many facets of life, but principles require sacrifice and I am comfortable with my choices so far.
    • mikeash 10y ago
      It's one thing to take a small, calculated risk on your life to save someone, and quite another to take a substantial and likely risk of financial ruin or prison just to help someone who will probably be turned out to die by the hospital.
    • nashashmi 10y ago
      Ok. Then would you still do that if the consequences were jail, separation from family, which also means putting family in a desperate situation of worry and runaround? Plus the rebuke that you would get from family too for putting them through so much trouble? Plus if you are the partial or whole breadwinner, which is often the case, putting family in financial calamity? I support what you feel, and I too would put up an aggressive stance of helping the individual, but the cost is a lot higher than just my personal efforts. I put a lot more people through the misery.
    • dmode 10y ago
      Also, keep in mind that India's legal system is broken. Law enforcement and courts are woefully underfunded. Police, lacking adequate resources, are always looking for scapegoats to close cases and declare victory. An easy target is an ordinary individual at a crash site. The immediate instinct of law enforcement in that situation is that the individual is guilty or "knows something". The follow-on steps are locking up the individual and even torturing them to get information. Remember, Indian courts and justice system is broken. Police can get away with virtually anything without any real consequence as long as the detainee is not well connected.
• sopooneo 10y ago
  What if a close personal friend had done so in the past to horrible consequences for themselves? What if time and again, you hear stories of good Samaritans reaping life destroying "thanks". What if you are a parent, and know that helping may risk putting you in jail, and unable to provide for you very poor family?
  • nicky0 10y ago
    I'm not familiar with this phenomenon of being jailed for helping a crash victim. Can someone elaborate? (Is this as US litigation culture thing?)
    • DanBC 10y ago
      > Tewari set out to understand this behaviour, and found the same pattern repeated time and again across the country. Passers-by who could have helped were holding back and doing nothing. > "The foremost reason was intimidation by police," he says. > "Oftentimes if you assist someone the police will assume you're helping that person out of guilt."
    • LionessLover 10y ago
      Reading the article and not just the comments occasionally helps :-)
      • gph 10y ago
        Heck even just reading the title should clue you in to the fact that we aren't discussing US litigation. Some people...
        • nicky0 10y ago
          Sorry.
• jlg23 10y ago
  > Tragic. I, personally, could not sit idly by and watch, or record, anyone suffering without attempting to assist. Consequences be damned, I would hope for the same assistance if I were injured & needing aid. Until last year I would have said the same but then I learned about the harsh reality in the Dominican Republic: A rich person who helps will always be blamed even if one arrived at the crash site an hour after the crash. In case of bodily harm to the victim, the accused goes to jail until trial (which can take weeks or even months). You can even get some insurance that covers you for that case - if you have that, you can go into a hotel in Santiago that was converted into a luxury prison. And of course the accused is asked to provide for all 50 or so people in the victim's family until s/he can work again - because none of those 50 people has a job and they depended on the victim's low paying job to feed them all. And one cannot count on a fair trial since corruption is so widespread that even judges are for sale (friends were ordered to pay severance package to a former employee based on a 12 year long employment - they arrived on Hispanola 9 years ago, started their business 8 years ago and had all papers to prove it...) So no, I would not always help anymore. I think India is doing the right thing: Enabling people to help by creating the laws that protect them from becoming a victim themselves.
  • uremog 10y ago
    Fraudulent traffic accidents is a full time job for some people.