The thread about driving around the car crash and not stopping got me thinking..

[Fumesucker]

When something bad happens to someone, at what point does the moral imperative to do something kick in for those who are aware of the event?

Obviously, moral imperative dilutes, I don't think anyone argued that every single person driving by an accident on a busy highway has a moral imperative to stop.

Some people said there was a moral imperative to at least give a statement if you saw the accident occur, that seems reasonable to me.

At what busy-ness level of the roadway does the moral imperative to stop and give aid start to slack off?

How about you are driving down a busy interstate with with a narrow median when you see a crash in the opposite lane.. You can't cross over and go back right there, you have to go to the next exit which might be ten miles in some places, twenty mile round trip.. Traffic is thick in your lane, construction up ahead, one moving slow with barriers and no shoulder, you stop, everything stops, there are a lot of people who see the wreck driving in your lane with you.

What do you do?

I've tried to come up with a not completely implausible scenario, if anyone has suggestions I'm open to them.

Keep in mind you have a different, and hence possibly important, view of the accident.

I'm asking questions because I'm not quite sure what I think.

[rrneck]

1. If you're

a Scientologist you have to stop. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p-AZ_axbUU

But seriously. It depends on the wreck. If it's just a fender bender at a stop light at a busy intersection, somebody will be on their cell phone before you can get out of the car. People bleeding on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere is another matter.

The only rule of thumb I can come up with is to render assistance if it looks like somebody needs it.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

2. sadly many people don't like to get involved

if people can avoid they will. Even if they are stopped directly behind the crash they just sit there. I remember the crash at the intersection at the top of our street. Two cars were involved and all the traffic was held up. Only 2 people myself and a man actually got out to help. The rest just sat there in their cars looking irrated that they'd been held up!

[paulsby]

3. it's gotten a lot worse in the age of the cellphone

it staggers me how many people call us (cops) from their cellphones vs. doing ANYTHING themselves.

you are driving on a rural road in the middle of nowhere, and you see a pallet in the roadway. the RIGHT thing to do is stop and remove it. you'd be surprised how many people call 911 to report this, so a cop can drive all the way out there and do the same thing, endangering all the other drivers who could hit the pallet in the time it takes him to get there, and taking the cop away from doing more important stuff (like muffins and lattes) !!.

i can give a million other examples, but the cell phone culture allows people even more latitude to just make a call and feel like they did something.

[barbtries]

4. two personal experiences come to mind

in one, (this in the years before cell phones were commonplace) i was driving on a crowded freeway in los angeles when a car came careening from behind me, all over the road, and made a left turn into the center divider before stopping. i pulled over at the next call box and - it was busy! i was freaking out. i stood at that call box until i heard sirens back on the freeway. then i went back to the scene, pulled over and spoke to a CHP officer, telling him i had witnessed the crash. i can say honestly that i needn't have done that. frankly i wanted to be sure the occupants were okay. one was bleeding and one was being arrested, but they were both up and walking at least.

the other is the night my daughter was killed. the person who killed her never even left a skid mark. she left my daughter's body bleeding in the median 100 feet away from her shoes. if passersby had not cared enough to pull over when they saw the body in the street...well, it didn't save her. but for someone else it might. i will always be grateful. also for the people who heard her scream from inside their apartments and called 911.

personally if i witness a wreck i always stop to share what i saw. it's happened to me when it was my word against the other person's. if someone's hurt i try to help. if i pass a bad wreck that looks like it just occurred, i call 911.

[Control-Z]

7. I'm speechless, and so sorry.

Sometimes, I think, it takes experience with tragedy to make some people aware of others suffering. Sadly. Or perhaps I should say that the lack of experience can keep many people ignorant.

[qanda]

5. What thread are you referring to?

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. From an EMS perspective, call 911 and report it

don't assume others have

Which is standard

[NNN0LHI]

8. Let me tell you a true story

I used to work with a man who stopped for an accident about two miles from where I am at right now. The car was on fire so the man pulled the driver from the car and it went up in flames shortly thereafter.

The man he pulled from the car sued the pants off of the guy who pulled him from certain death because he claimed by moving him it injured his spine. This man I knew was ruined financially.

This happened prior to "Good Samaritan" laws being enacted in Illinois which would have protected the man above from being sued the way he was.

Don

[DoctorMyEyes]

9. I didn't get sued

If I witness the accident or am the first one to discover it I'll pull over and try to do what I can. However, if it's a busy roadway and I feel like I'd cause more danger than good, and it looks like other people are already stopping to assist I'll generally keep going. I'm not a nurse, doctor, emt and have no real skills to offer if I didn't actually witness the accident. In those cases I feel the most helpful thing I can do is to not be in the way.

But, I had a situation once years ago that taught me to be a little more guarded than I would have been previously. I drove over an elevated overpass and saw a young man lying on the side of the road next to a bicycle. No one else was there and I immediately pulled over - thinking he'd been hit. He seemed a little out of it and I ran down the overpass and shouted for a gas station attendant to call 911. I ran back to let the guy know that help was on the way. He still seemed out of it and I wondered if he was maybe drunk or high on drugs so I asked him if he had anything on him he wanted to get rid of before police or EMTs arrived. He didn't and while we were waiting I began to understand that he wasn't high or drunk. He was developmentally disabled and had simply fallen off his bike, skinning his knee and scaring himself.

By the time I was allowed to leave the "accident scene" I was actually grateful that he wasn't so sharp to have thought to blame me for his injury. Because the police, the fire department, and the ambulance guys were all CONVINCED that I'd hit him! I was only allowed to go and not have a breathalyzer because the kid kept adamantly correcting them - insisting that he'd fallen off his bike!

As I was finally allowed to leave they were cramming him and his skinned knee into the "Heartbeat One" special ambulance that was going to cost his mom at least $500 and he was pleading that they allow him to bring his bike along for the ride.