5 ms·

A few weeks ago, I was pedalling to work in the rain when I saw something which briefly made me well up with rage: a car parked diagonally across the cycle lane

by m0nty 12y ago

A few weeks ago, I was pedalling to work in the rain when I saw something which briefly made me well up with rage: a car parked diagonally across the cycle lane, driver clearly on the phone - a new level of "f*ck you" from a motorist to cyclists. But then I saw the skid-marks leading across the verge from the road, and I realised this was a bit more serious. I stopped and tapped on the window. She was very distraught, nearly hysterical. It was a single-vehicle accident caused by sliding out of control on the very water-logged roundabout. The thing she kept saying over and over was "nobody stopped to help! They all just keep on driving past!" So I phoned the police and stayed with her for the next 20 minutes, until the police showed up. I was getting soaked in the rain and making myself late, but felt I owed it to her to stay put and make sure she came through it all OK. As I remounted my bike and rode away, it occurred to me that she didn't at any point thank me, and since then has made no attempt to contact me even though we discussed where I work (just across the road from her) as part of the small-talk. So in her own way, she was doing the same thing as the other drivers who had so upset her, albeit inadvertently. I probably wouldn't have stopped either, except she was literally blocking my path. So it's easy to marvel at how disassociated we all are. A different thing entirely to do anything meaningful about it, even on a purely personal level. There's not much to be gained from interacting with strangers, even less when there's a risk of being dragged into someone else's potentially violent confrontation. This is not a problem with phones, it's a problem with excessively large communities where we will probably never run into each other again. So why take the risk?

Fuxy 12y ago
You're pretty much on your own in a large city never expect anybody to help you. The only people that will help you is family and friends. Risking your life, safety or just wasting time for the sake of helping a stranger happens as often as people donating large amounts to charity. So if you want to fight your robber you better have a large knife or gun on your person because people won't help you.
- darkFunction 12y ago
  I experienced this in London after being mugged. I had to walk a long way to a police station because every person I asked for assistance refused to either lend me their phone or to phone the police themselves.
  - switch007 12y ago
    I'm saddened by that. In London, I would not offer anyone my phone, as I've travelled too much in Europe and seen too many thieves. I would certainly offer to call the police for you, and I'm shocked that you could not find anyone who would do that. It's no help to you now, but for others, I am certain - well, I would strongly hope - that a hotel would offer their assistance to someone obviously distraught.
  - bluerobotcat 12y ago
    To be fair, that does sound like it could be a scam. Also, presumably all the police would have told you is that you should go to the nearest police station. Once, after withdrawing money from an ATM, two guys came up to me with a 5 euro note. They told me I had dropped it and wanted me to take out my wallet. Supposedly so I could verify that I 'indeed' lost money. Another time someone came up with some sob story and asked me if he could use my phone, or failing that, if I could make a call for him. I forget the details except that I did have to fight him off later. These events happened in two different countries, and I have more stories like this.
    - hornetblack 12y ago
      There was also a scammer that would come up distressed and would call a premium number that they made money off.
k-mcgrady 12y ago
>> "As I remounted my bike and rode away, it occurred to me that she didn't at any point thank me..." >> "There's not much to be gained from interacting with strangers..." Good on you for stopping to help but why do you feel like you should have to gain something by helping someone else? The woman you helped was still probably quite shocked and dealing with police to thank you and it's highly likely that in such a situation information like where you worked completely went over her head. I think this is one of the reasons people have stopped helping others - they expect something in return. If I helped someone the only thing I'd expect in return would be that if the person I helped is ever in a situation where they can provide help to someone else, they'll remember the time they were helped by a stranger and take action. Side point >> "There's not much to be gained from interacting with strangers, even less when there's a risk of being dragged into someone else's potentially violent confrontation." The second part of this statement interests me. Is fear of something (that is highly unlikely to occur) a reason people don't get involved? It made me think of Michael Moore's conclusion in Bowling for Columbine that America's love of guns is based on fear that they will be attacked, mugged, home invaded etc. This may also be a reason people don't get involved in situation they can't control even though it's highly unlikely they are in any danger.
- Anderkent 12y ago
  >I think this is one of the reasons people have stopped helping others - they expect something in return. People always expected something in return, the thing that changes is that you no longer get it. In a small community, you're likely to meet the person you helped again, and thus leaving them stranded will definitely bite you. Not so in the current huge cities. You say 'if I helped someone the only thing I'd expect in return would be that if the person I helped is ever in a situation where they can provide help to someone else, they'll remember the time they were helped by a stranger and take action', but is this sufficient motivation for you to actually go out and help people?
  - k-mcgrady 12y ago
    >> "is this sufficient motivation for you to actually go out and help people?" Yes. But more than that it's the fact that I find it morally very wrong to ignore someone who needs your help. I can think of several situations where I've went out of my way to help someone. I don't want to sound like a great human being going round helping the needy (I'm not) but if I can help, I do.
sonnym 12y ago
The beginning of your story reminded me of the wonderful commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace at Kenyon College in 2005 [1]. It is very easy to well up with rage, but it is significantly more difficult to understand the context of another's actions. Sometimes I have to stop and tell myself "This is water" and try to put myself in the shoes of the stranger who has enraged me. I do applaud your stopping to help, and I find it unfortunate the experience was not more rewarding. 1. http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/DFWKenyonAddress2005.pdf http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/DFWKenyonAddress2005.pdf
- m0nty 12y ago
  Actually, it was very rewarding, which surprised me immensely. I'm not too surprised she didn't thank me - as k-mcgrady says, she was busy with the police by that time. But equally, we shouldn't be that surprised that people are preoccupied with their own problems and so don't stop to help us.
RogerL 12y ago
You were lucky. I forget the paper I saw it in, so I cannot link to it, but it was a story of a very similar situation. Except the person that stopped to help ended up getting mugged and beaten. The police quoted in the article advised everyone to just call in situations like this and leave it to the authorities, to not involve themselves. I'm not saying I agree (or disagree) with that advice, but there are good reasons for not getting involved.
crashoverdrive 12y ago
Because you're human! What do you think got your ancestors this far! Do those values no longer apply because we beat certain environmental elements? Are we to suggest that community support is as vestigial as the tailbone?
JPKab 12y ago
When I was 12 years old, a larger, older boy was drowning in the Chesapeake Bay. It was the kind of beach where the water is knee deep for 100 years out from shore, but then suddenly drops off to 11 feet or so of water. He was bouncing off the bottom to get air (he couldn't swim) but his face was turning blue, and he was making choking noises and frantically splashing. I tried to grab him, and pull him to the sandbar. He clawed onto me and began drowning me. I punched and pried and kicked underwater to get him off of me, and thanked God when I got him off and got ten feet away and got air again. I yelled for help. The people on the beach 100 yards away did nothing. Perhaps it was disbelief... I ran through the knee deep water as fast as I could to them and yelled for help as I got there. Nobody moved. I wasn't thinking, just moving, and there were those styrofoam noodles on the ground next to their blanket. I snatched one without saying a word and ran back to the water faster than I ever have before. By the time I got to him it was ugly. He was still bouncing up from the bottom, but he was barely conscious, and his face looked like something from a horror movie. I've seen some horrific shit, but a drowning person at that stage looks like a zombie. He grabbed the noodle, and I pulled him the 15 feet or so to the sandbar. 15 feet, and it was knee deep water. He couldn't walk, and I picked him up fireman's style, and he was coughing out and puking water all down my back as I carried him to shore. This was the 90s, so there were no cell phones in the rural county I lived in. I ran into a house near the beach and had the ambulance come. He almost died later of a lung infection, but he's ok now. I asked my dad that night why nobody helped. My dad told me that I was a "helper" like him. (he was a volunteer EMT his whole life, and a volunteer fireman. Plus I watched him help strangers all the time growing up.) "Most people aren't helpers." he said. As I've gotten older, I figured out that is the case. And when you a helper, you have to help a lot. I don't know what it is, but basically maybe 80 to 90% of people don't do shit in these situations. They subconsciously don't even notice. And being a helper sucks, a lot, sometimes, but you still do it because you don't think you just do and your gut won't let you. You can't walk away because of some deep down feeling that you are subhuman if you do. My worst helper experience was stopping a guy in a rural NC bar's parking lot from beating his girlfriend. I started fighting him, and his GF (who he had just been beating) smashed a bottle on my head. My vision went blurry, and she jumped on my back and I fell to the ground. They both then proceeded to beat the shit out of me on the gravel parking lot ground. Now, I avoid going into the "hipster" neighborhoods of DC. As my wife pointed out, nobody in these neighborhoods is a helper. Helpers can't live in these neighborhoods long, because inevitably you end up getting sucked into this shit and you are always alone. Did I oversimplify? Maybe. But that's my experience. I can't help but help people in trouble, and in urban and suburban areas, its probably a bad evolutionary strategy. In the country, not so much. People care there, and they reciprocate. This is probably due to such small social groups....... Wow, I ranted for a while. I'm so sorry for this woman...... I wish I'd have been there.

by m0nty 12y ago

Fuxy 12y ago

You're pretty much on your own in a large city never expect anybody to help you. The only people that will help you is family and friends. Risking your life, safety or just wasting time for the sake of helping a stranger happens as often as people donating large amounts to charity. So if you want to fight your robber you better have a large knife or gun on your person because people won't help you.

darkFunction 12y ago
I experienced this in London after being mugged. I had to walk a long way to a police station because every person I asked for assistance refused to either lend me their phone or to phone the police themselves.
- switch007 12y ago
  I'm saddened by that. In London, I would not offer anyone my phone, as I've travelled too much in Europe and seen too many thieves. I would certainly offer to call the police for you, and I'm shocked that you could not find anyone who would do that. It's no help to you now, but for others, I am certain - well, I would strongly hope - that a hotel would offer their assistance to someone obviously distraught.
- bluerobotcat 12y ago
  To be fair, that does sound like it could be a scam. Also, presumably all the police would have told you is that you should go to the nearest police station. Once, after withdrawing money from an ATM, two guys came up to me with a 5 euro note. They told me I had dropped it and wanted me to take out my wallet. Supposedly so I could verify that I 'indeed' lost money. Another time someone came up with some sob story and asked me if he could use my phone, or failing that, if I could make a call for him. I forget the details except that I did have to fight him off later. These events happened in two different countries, and I have more stories like this.
  - hornetblack 12y ago
    There was also a scammer that would come up distressed and would call a premium number that they made money off.

k-mcgrady 12y ago

>> "As I remounted my bike and rode away, it occurred to me that she didn't at any point thank me..." >> "There's not much to be gained from interacting with strangers..." Good on you for stopping to help but why do you feel like you should have to gain something by helping someone else? The woman you helped was still probably quite shocked and dealing with police to thank you and it's highly likely that in such a situation information like where you worked completely went over her head. I think this is one of the reasons people have stopped helping others - they expect something in return. If I helped someone the only thing I'd expect in return would be that if the person I helped is ever in a situation where they can provide help to someone else, they'll remember the time they were helped by a stranger and take action. Side point >> "There's not much to be gained from interacting with strangers, even less when there's a risk of being dragged into someone else's potentially violent confrontation." The second part of this statement interests me. Is fear of something (that is highly unlikely to occur) a reason people don't get involved? It made me think of Michael Moore's conclusion in Bowling for Columbine that America's love of guns is based on fear that they will be attacked, mugged, home invaded etc. This may also be a reason people don't get involved in situation they can't control even though it's highly unlikely they are in any danger.

Anderkent 12y ago
>I think this is one of the reasons people have stopped helping others - they expect something in return. People always expected something in return, the thing that changes is that you no longer get it. In a small community, you're likely to meet the person you helped again, and thus leaving them stranded will definitely bite you. Not so in the current huge cities. You say 'if I helped someone the only thing I'd expect in return would be that if the person I helped is ever in a situation where they can provide help to someone else, they'll remember the time they were helped by a stranger and take action', but is this sufficient motivation for you to actually go out and help people?
- k-mcgrady 12y ago
  >> "is this sufficient motivation for you to actually go out and help people?" Yes. But more than that it's the fact that I find it morally very wrong to ignore someone who needs your help. I can think of several situations where I've went out of my way to help someone. I don't want to sound like a great human being going round helping the needy (I'm not) but if I can help, I do.

sonnym 12y ago

The beginning of your story reminded me of the wonderful commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace at Kenyon College in 2005 [1]. It is very easy to well up with rage, but it is significantly more difficult to understand the context of another's actions. Sometimes I have to stop and tell myself "This is water" and try to put myself in the shoes of the stranger who has enraged me. I do applaud your stopping to help, and I find it unfortunate the experience was not more rewarding. 1. http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/DFWKenyonAddress2005.pdf http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~drkelly/DFWKenyonAddress2005.pdf

m0nty 12y ago
Actually, it was very rewarding, which surprised me immensely. I'm not too surprised she didn't thank me - as k-mcgrady says, she was busy with the police by that time. But equally, we shouldn't be that surprised that people are preoccupied with their own problems and so don't stop to help us.

RogerL 12y ago

You were lucky. I forget the paper I saw it in, so I cannot link to it, but it was a story of a very similar situation. Except the person that stopped to help ended up getting mugged and beaten. The police quoted in the article advised everyone to just call in situations like this and leave it to the authorities, to not involve themselves. I'm not saying I agree (or disagree) with that advice, but there are good reasons for not getting involved.

crashoverdrive 12y ago

Because you're human! What do you think got your ancestors this far! Do those values no longer apply because we beat certain environmental elements? Are we to suggest that community support is as vestigial as the tailbone?

JPKab 12y ago

When I was 12 years old, a larger, older boy was drowning in the Chesapeake Bay. It was the kind of beach where the water is knee deep for 100 years out from shore, but then suddenly drops off to 11 feet or so of water. He was bouncing off the bottom to get air (he couldn't swim) but his face was turning blue, and he was making choking noises and frantically splashing. I tried to grab him, and pull him to the sandbar. He clawed onto me and began drowning me. I punched and pried and kicked underwater to get him off of me, and thanked God when I got him off and got ten feet away and got air again. I yelled for help. The people on the beach 100 yards away did nothing. Perhaps it was disbelief... I ran through the knee deep water as fast as I could to them and yelled for help as I got there. Nobody moved. I wasn't thinking, just moving, and there were those styrofoam noodles on the ground next to their blanket. I snatched one without saying a word and ran back to the water faster than I ever have before. By the time I got to him it was ugly. He was still bouncing up from the bottom, but he was barely conscious, and his face looked like something from a horror movie. I've seen some horrific shit, but a drowning person at that stage looks like a zombie. He grabbed the noodle, and I pulled him the 15 feet or so to the sandbar. 15 feet, and it was knee deep water. He couldn't walk, and I picked him up fireman's style, and he was coughing out and puking water all down my back as I carried him to shore. This was the 90s, so there were no cell phones in the rural county I lived in. I ran into a house near the beach and had the ambulance come. He almost died later of a lung infection, but he's ok now. I asked my dad that night why nobody helped. My dad told me that I was a "helper" like him. (he was a volunteer EMT his whole life, and a volunteer fireman. Plus I watched him help strangers all the time growing up.) "Most people aren't helpers." he said. As I've gotten older, I figured out that is the case. And when you a helper, you have to help a lot. I don't know what it is, but basically maybe 80 to 90% of people don't do shit in these situations. They subconsciously don't even notice. And being a helper sucks, a lot, sometimes, but you still do it because you don't think you just do and your gut won't let you. You can't walk away because of some deep down feeling that you are subhuman if you do. My worst helper experience was stopping a guy in a rural NC bar's parking lot from beating his girlfriend. I started fighting him, and his GF (who he had just been beating) smashed a bottle on my head. My vision went blurry, and she jumped on my back and I fell to the ground. They both then proceeded to beat the shit out of me on the gravel parking lot ground. Now, I avoid going into the "hipster" neighborhoods of DC. As my wife pointed out, nobody in these neighborhoods is a helper. Helpers can't live in these neighborhoods long, because inevitably you end up getting sucked into this shit and you are always alone. Did I oversimplify? Maybe. But that's my experience. I can't help but help people in trouble, and in urban and suburban areas, its probably a bad evolutionary strategy. In the country, not so much. People care there, and they reciprocate. This is probably due to such small social groups....... Wow, I ranted for a while. I'm so sorry for this woman...... I wish I'd have been there.