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If no-one helps you after a car crash in India, this is why

bbc.co.uk

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Re: If no-one helps you after a car crash in India, this is why

#21

Post by JoeAltmaier »

parennoob wrote: post #18
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My brother and sister-in-law were being driven to the airport to come home (to Cupertino) by his Father-in-law, at 2 in the morning. He drove at high speed, ignoring traffic lights and signs. They were alarmed; he was unconcerned. "Nobody is about this time in the night; we're perfectly safe!" So there's some kind of mass insanity going on in India for sure.

This is the kind of low-effort, off-the-cuff pronouncement that I hate seeing on here. Because an Indian (presumably) you knew was driving in an unsafe manner, you can directly make pronouncements about "mass insanity" about a country of a billion people? Mind you, I'm not saying Indians are safe drivers. Indian driving, I freely admit, is spectacularly unsafe and makes me worried. There are a host of factors that ca…

Sorry to hit your hot button! That was meant kindly. But I see your point. And thanks for fleshing out the argument - certainly there is something desperately wrong with the Indian road situation.

Re: If no-one helps you after a car crash in India, this is why

#22

Post by personlurking »

Gys wrote: post #2

tl;dr: "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." Apart from the fear of being falsely implicated, people also worried about becoming trapped as a witness in a court case - legal proceedings can be notoriously protracted in India. And if they helped the victim get to hospital, they feared coming under pr…

While I haven't been to Japan, a documentary [1] on expats living in Japan had a part (if my memory serves me) where the same sentiment was expressed, ie, "don't involve yourself".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prNYOW0_kms

PS - Even if my memory is from another source regarding Japan, the documentary showed me a lot I didn't know.

Re: If no-one helps you after a car crash in India, this is why

#23

Post by shripadk »

williamstein wrote: post #10
po wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worse than that, the incentives are such that it's better to kill than maim: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2... (although this is apparently in question: http://www.snopes.com/chinese-drivers-kill-pedestrians/ ) This is one of those subjects where people like to put moral consequences on the bystanders when it's the rules and larger structures of the society that matter. Driving in I…

Somebody did die while we were reading this article. According to the article "Fifteen people are killed every hour in road accidents in India".

Statistics always presents a wrong picture when considered in isolation.

Just for the sake of curiosity let us compare statistics of road accidents between USA and India. I'm taking the 2005 US road accident data as a reference: http://www.foxnews.com/story/2005/02/03/car-crashes-kill-400...

So according to the statistics from the above article, approximately 40,000 die every year in USA with 100 people dying every day due to road accidents. That is approximately 5 per hour. In India it is 100,000 per year. The population of USA is 318.9 million compared to 1.252 billion of India. If you put it in perspective, 0.013% of total population die every year due to road accidents in the US while only 0.00798% of total population die every year due to road accidents in India. So by looking at these calculations India "seems" to be a lot safer than the US (in-spite of horrible traffic rules and no proper emergency services). The issue is not the stats but proper implementation of emergency services which might help in saving a fraction of the total lives lost. But the real issue is regulating traffic (which is more erratic in the cities than in towns/villages in India).

Re: If no-one helps you after a car crash in India, this is why

#24

Post by philh »

whistlerbrk wrote: post #6

Sounds like they desperately need a good samaritan law

Typically, a good samaritan law relates to the situation where a bystander tries in good faith to help someone, and accidentally makes things worse. A good samaritan law says they won't get in trouble for that.

I don't see anything in the article about people being punished for trying to help and making things worse. People get punished just for trying to help. Things go south before a good samaritan law would come into play.

Re: If no-one helps you after a car crash in India, this is why

#25

Post by hrnnnnnn »

bnegreve wrote: post #19
tunap wrote: post #11

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. This is something I have spent a lot of time contemplating lately as I watch people texting while operating multi-ton vehicles at any speed, let alone at 80mph(130kmh)down the highway. I have witnessed a notable…

> 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.

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

Re: If no-one helps you after a car crash in India, this is why

#26

Post by [deleted] »

bnegreve wrote: post #19
tunap wrote: post #11

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. This is something I have spent a lot of time contemplating lately as I watch people texting while operating multi-ton vehicles at any speed, let alone at 80mph(130kmh)down the highway. I have witnessed a notable…

> 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.

[deleted]

Re: If no-one helps you after a car crash in India, this is why

#27

Post by po »

aaron695 wrote: post #12
po wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worse than that, the incentives are such that it's better to kill than maim: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2... (although this is apparently in question: http://www.snopes.com/chinese-drivers-kill-pedestrians/ ) This is one of those subjects where people like to put moral consequences on the bystanders when it's the rules and larger structures of the society that matter. Driving in I…

[deleted] http://www.snopes.com/chinese-drivers-kill-pedestrians/ In a country of 1 billion+ people you'll always get these stories. Since as we know, we get in them in the west as well, the media will drum up, child left to die by road. When we all know the drivers just didn't seem them or didn't know what happened. But that's a crappy story. People help people in obvious severe immediate need and take risks doing i…

Didn't know it was in question, added a link to snopes.

> Blaming people because of bystanders effect is poor form.

My point, perhaps poorly made, was also that the larger societal incentives are to blame. Many people respond as we would hope. In the aggregate, people tend to respond to the pressures applied to them.

Re: If no-one helps you after a car crash in India, this is why

#28

Post by rfrey »

shripadk wrote: post #23
williamstein wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Somebody did die while we were reading this article. According to the article "Fifteen people are killed every hour in road accidents in India".

Statistics always presents a wrong picture when considered in isolation. Just for the sake of curiosity let us compare statistics of road accidents between USA and India. I'm taking the 2005 US road accident data as a reference: http://www.foxnews.com/story/2005/02/03/car-crashes-kill-400... So according to the statistics from the above article, approximately 40,000 die every year in USA with 100 people dying every d…

Probably worth looking at the number of drivers/owned automobiles in each country to get even more refined.

Re: If no-one helps you after a car crash in India, this is why

#29

Post by shripadk »

wmt wrote: post #16
Dylan16807 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the section at the end about hospitals refusing treatment when someone's brought in by a stranger that won't be paying.

I wonder how does that even work? If someone drops in an injured person and leaves, will the hospital just let the injured person die on the floor? If bystanders doing nothing raises headlines in India, I'd imagine hospitals doing that would be an even bigger scandal.

I can confirm this. Hospitals don't treat unless the injured person's relative(s) sign legal papers. The general rule of thumb in India is that one should always carry at least an ID proof (better yet an insurance policy) so that in case of an accident the hospital can contact the relative.

Re: If no-one helps you after a car crash in India, this is why

#30

Post by tunap »

bnegreve wrote: post #19
tunap wrote: post #11

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. This is something I have spent a lot of time contemplating lately as I watch people texting while operating multi-ton vehicles at any speed, let alone at 80mph(130kmh)down the highway. I have witnessed a notable…

> 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.

Indeed, you never know until you're in the moment. Several first responders, friends and family, have enlightened me with their experiences and I have witnessed their "Duty to Act" requirement, first hand. I have limited training, know my limits(do not cause more harm) and even some experience. I was injured(sprained finger) and put myself in harm's way of heavy traffic in the last 12 months providing maritime assistance when everyone else was oblivious or apathetic. I try to practice what I preach... it's a mindful exercise which I have to always work on.
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