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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

#161

Post by chdir »

jargnar wrote: post #93

A very real, slightly non-obvious problem is the size of the Indian population itself. There are so many people here that, competition is a stronger emotion than community. To an extent that sometimes it is considered normal to put someone else at risk for your benefit, while self-empathizing along the lines of "Hey, if I don't do it, someone else will stamp on that person to move ahead in life." Competition is every…

> - Want a train ticket to travel within India? Login to the IRCTC exactly at 8 am, and pray that the next 5 seconds is your lucky time.

This if incorrect. Train tickets are available online round the clock (almost). It's the "tatkal" (last-minute / emergency) bookings that opens at 10 AM. The system is under immense load, and despite that the availability has improved over the past 2 years.

Indian rail network, despite its shortcomings, is pretty amazing I think. It moves the nation. It's also one of the largest employers in the world [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_employers

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

#162

Post by bdrool »

sonink wrote: post #131
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…

Driving in India is only insane to westerners. I have been driving in India for a decade and I dont find it hard at all. Driving in the US though is one of the most stressfull things for me. Part of the stress in US is because of the different side driving, but also a lot because I have to keep in mind a TON of rules - lane markers, speed limits, lane changing etc.- and everyone moves in super high speed so any mista…

> Driving in India is only insane to westerners.

According to Wikipedia[1], there are 56% more traffic fatalities annually than in the US. Compared to the UK, it's 472% more. I don't think it's merely a matter of perspective. The data indicates it's much more dangerous in absolute terms.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...

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

#163

Post by pjlegato »

Alterlife wrote: post #142
varchar wrote: post #133

My family has lived in South India for many decades. India's infrastructure and emergency response in not very good although it has improved over the years. One thing I have observed is - it is the bystanders, the common man who rushe to the aid of victims in case of disasters - accidents, train derailment, floods, earthquakes. I could give you dozens of examples gathered from newspapers and from first hand experienc…

To be fair, all the cases that you mentioned are those where where the police and the system do not look for someone to blame. The article doesn't disagree with you: > what safety campaigner Piyush Tewari saw wasn't a lack of compassion but an entire system stacked against helping road victims. ... > He contrasts the reluctance of passers-by to help victims of road accidents with their response to train crashes or bo…

It also says the new Supreme Court orders (not guidelines) are being widely ignored, and so they are now running a state-by-state campaign to get laws passed that match the orders.

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

#164

Post by gohrt »

nashashmi wrote: post #78
wmt wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, hospitals and doctors won't admit. A quick story in Pakistan: A brain surgeon had a lot of success doing brain surgeries and received much fame, award, and status worldwide, and even though he started out modestly helping the poor and less fortunate, fame and greed got to him, and he became more demanding in terms of payment. Well, a man brought in a young individual involved in a car accident who had received…

Are you claiming this story is true? Was this story ever documented? It has all the looks of an "urban legend"

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

#165

Post by parennoob »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #21
parennoob wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Sorry to hit your hot button! That was meant kindly.

The apology is meaningless; this has nothing to do with buttons. I merely pointed out a generalization based on an random anecdote, based on no real experience of the situation. Acknowledging it as such would help.

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

#166

Post by whatever_dude »

Chris2048 wrote: post #80

Relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Wang_Yue context: "...the story of a man named Peng Yu in Nanjing who was sued by a woman after helping her. The old woman was successful in seeking damages from the man because the judge claimed that the man wouldn’t have helped her unless he was guilty of injuring her in the first place..." -- https://chinachange.org/2011/10/20/the-good-samaritan-in-chi...

In the "Good Samaritan" case, it turned out that the guy was actually guilty (apparently; he confessed and they had some witnesses).

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2012-01-17/china-s-i...

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

#168

Post by dmode »

tunap wrote: post #43
mikeash wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fundamental…

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 principle…

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.

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

#169

Post by shripadk »

stan_rogers wrote: post #160
shripadk wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So according to you rape culture is not prevalent in any other country except India? Guess what? The number one, numero uno, rape capital of the World is the United States. I'll quote an article for you: http://www.more.com/news/india-rape-capital-world "India only ranks third for the number of rapes reported each year. What country ranks first? The United States. In India, a country of over 1.2 billion people, 24,20…

The obvious keyword here being reported . Not that I'm necessarily agreeing with the GP; it's just that rape/sexual assault is something that is generally under-reported for various reasons, including shame, fear of reprisal, futility, and so on. That makes any statistics relying on reported rape essentially meaningless when talking about "rape culture", since reports are more likely the less culturally acceptable so…

> The obvious keyword here being reported.

EDIT: And that is why I gave an example of Saudi Arabia having lesser "reported" cases than India or USA.

That's precisely why there was a revolution of sorts in India regarding rape and reporting of cases. Why do you think the Indian people took to streets and stormed into one of the most well guarded places in the World: the President's House (Rashtrapathi Bhavan. See this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWVGWH1e5xQ) if not for bringing a change in the society? How many countries do you see this happen where the general public takes to the streets to demand equality for women and their rights?

The problem is that people outside India chose to focus more on the rape culture itself rather than the response to it by the Indian public and that pains me as an Indian.

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

#170

Post by avg19 »

bdrool wrote: post #162
sonink wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Driving in India is only insane to westerners. I have been driving in India for a decade and I dont find it hard at all. Driving in the US though is one of the most stressfull things for me. Part of the stress in US is because of the different side driving, but also a lot because I have to keep in mind a TON of rules - lane markers, speed limits, lane changing etc.- and everyone moves in super high speed so any mista…

> Driving in India is only insane to westerners. According to Wikipedia[1], there are 56% more traffic fatalities annually than in the US. Compared to the UK, it's 472% more. I don't think it's merely a matter of perspective. The data indicates it's much more dangerous in absolute terms. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...

Those figures dont necessarily mean that driving in India is stressfull.

To give you one data point - almost ALL cars in the US/UK will have Air Bags. My guess is that MOST cars in India do NOT have an air bag. Additionally, this figure also included two wheelers, which will obviously have a higher fatality rate.

India might be having a lot less accidents than the US (and possibly because of low speeds), but just because most vehicles do not have air bag, the fatality rate could be much higher.

In any case, I am not really arguing that India traffic should not improve. Just that the perceived 'stress' level might be just because of a relative comparison against a different 'system' of traffic.

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