Remember when you were at school, or even if you are, there was that big punch on last week, and there were fists flying everywhere, but instead of breaking the fight up, a large circle starts to form, as now 50+ people are watching the fight.
We seem to make entertainment of other peoples issues, pain, or anything bad really.

There was a car accident a while ago, it was 2 car crash, one turning through the intersection and the other hit it on the side of the car about 40kmph. The people were hurt, and screaming in the car that was hit on the side, but other wise ok, People around were just watching, not helping, perhaps they are in shock too, but no one thought about running up to the cars and pulling the victims out. Though people were using their mobile phones to call for help.
The accident didn't seem to be a fire danger, so In this instance would you help the victims or just stand and watch.

If something like this happens to me one day I wonder what would Happen and If anyone would help.

Its like when a car alarm or house alarm goes off, no one really does anything.

What would you do?

I think most would say they'd help, generally we all feel that we would want to help out in such a situation. However it's been proven that often it's not the case. You'll see a such a situation and rather than act upon it you'll simply witness it. It's a feeling that 'someone else will do it'.

I know I feel like I'd be willing to help. However when the time comes, that may not be the case. I know I've simply watched punch ons rather than try to do anything about it before, I wouldn't be surprised if the same happened in more extreme situations.

I have to agree with Comrade Natrak. A lot of us would say we would help, but when an accident actually occurs, I don't know if everyone would actually bother helping. It's not just the feeling that "somone else will do it", but also a lot of people don't like to get involved for whatever reasons they may have.

Kinda rings true with the cynical saying - "No good deed goes unpunished."

With the car/house alarm thing, I think that because there always seems to be so many false alarms, that when something really does happen it become a part of our conscious that we think it's another false alarm and that we don't bother doing anything about it.

I also think this is a product of our own greediness. Seeing as that everyone sues everyone for anything these days, people are a little hesitant to get involved in something such as a car crash where people are hurt. Sure you might pull them out and save them from bleeding to death, but they turn around and sue you for breaking their leg in the process.

I don't think people stand aside consciously, but humans are bizarre, flawed creatures, who are always looking out for number one in any way they can.

Well, I've been in this situation a few times, mainly friends fighting (literally) at school.

Its always been a bit of an instinct of mine to try and stop it if it looks serious, if it doesnt theres no point getting involved. Twice I got involved to stop the fight, the first time my mate was kicking this other guy, who was much smaller and on the ground (it was over handball), and when I stopped it he turned on me, which couldve gotten nasty, im not really one for responding to violence...

The other time it was between the two biggest guys in our grade, (started as mucking around with falcons, one thing led to another) and I was a bit scared, as getting in the middle of it would have meant me getting absolutely smashed, but nobody else around was willing so I did, and called out to our teacher who was nearby and luckily they stopped without me getting hammered...

In both cases it was friends fighting friends so it was all forgotten in a few days...

That kind of violence really sucks to me though. It doesnt seem that bad until you get a bit older and realise how stupid it is and what it does to people (socially i mean), especially when its over stupid things like who is next in handball, I guess thats why my first impulse is to stop it...

But if it isnt really serious and is just letting off steam its better not to get involved.

I've never really been in a situation where I could've intervened a fight or whatever, they've just never come around. If I feared for my own safety though, I doubt I'd get involved.

It strikes me as a instinctive reflex. You've just seen someone mangled up by a big bully or a big car crash and you don't want to see yourself put in that kind of danger. So you just stare numbly. But yeah, I don't understand how people cheer some poor kid getting beaten up.

I witnessed a motorbike accident last year - but people immediatly ran up to help and I was a long way off - so it didn't seem like there was anything I could do. I was a little shaken though.

I don't think I would break up a fight if I saw it. But I would step in and try to do something if it was more like one guy beating up someone else. People need to be responsible for their own actions.

When I was in year 10, a year 7 kid who was a foot shorter than me tried to start a fight with me - but I just laughed at him and walked away. Perhaps meaning he went on to tell everyone how he beat up a grade 10 student in grade 7, but more likely he went on to overdose on crack and die in a gutter somewhere...

Perhaps they knew that in most cases, you shouldn't be pulling seriously injured people out of cars. If they've broken their upper arm, for instance, and you decide to grab both of their hands to pull them out of the car, you could end up causing some serious damage.

Really, the best course of action is just to call an ambulance and ask if there's anything you can do in the mean time (e.g. check pulse).

good call - never move someone who has been in a car accident unless their lives depend on it - there is a good chance you can do some serious damage.

Especially if they have a suspected broken neck. I would try and provide any assistance possible for someone injured in a car. As for a fight however I doubt I would intervene because that would probably just cause more trouble than good.

Yeh, what Syt said, you shouldn't pull people out of accidents, unless there is a danger of the car exploding or it is on fire.

I remember once, rumour spread that two of my mates were gonna fight, so when they walked over to each other to find out what was going on the WHOLE school followed. Teachers ran out shouting to stop the fight, yet the people who were supposed to be in the fight were all like "Go away people! Nothing to see here!". It was hilarious but I was slightly intimidated as the WHOLE school was crowded around, very unnerving.

Some kid got hit by a car, or more the kid hit the car whilst riding his bike. He rode down a hill, not bothering to check for pedestrians nor cars, almost running me over, only to smack straight into a car travelling about 5kmph. Everyone was like "OMG YOU HIT THIS KID!!" but it was his own stupid fault and he was fine, so I just laughed and left.

There are several reasons that people often don't help in these situations.

-Other people around might help, no need for me as well
-Don't know what to do
-In shock
-Unsure of any liability incurred on yourself for actually helping
-What Syt said, may do more harm than good
-May be a dangerous situation in itself, so you can't really help - For example: You can't really save someone in the ocean if there's like a shark swimming around them (even if your a surf life saver, I've trained as one before, and if the risk is too high, you can't do anything).

So there's many circumstances to why people do not help, oh, one other, they just don't care :P

But this is something I covered last year in I think it was Social Psych, but it has been research and found an inverse relationship between the number of people around an accident and the number of people who help. In other words, the more people there are, the less likely someone will help.

Some food for thought.

When it comes to a schoolyard punch up, there's no real need to intervene, until one kid is getting seriously messed up.

When there's an accident or something you know is quite serious, I tend to think people will always want to help, but can't weigh up the options you guys have described in this thread quick enough.

For instance, say someone saw a car plow into a pole. Your first reaction is recognition of it even occuring, are you dreaming, is this really happening etc. Then we start to weigh up the pros and cons in our minds subconciously. "Will the car blow up", "will I get into more mess than it's worth if i do bother to help", "are the people inside the car really hurt", "did they deserve it, driving down a 50Km/h street at what seemed like breakneck speeds", "will anyone else help before me"..etc.

You wouldn't believe what goes through your mind subconciously when faced with something "bad", and it's all a matter of what you actually do when a situation occurs, as opposed to what you think you'll do.

I almost always intervened during school yard fights due to my then friends being involved on practically every occassion. When it comes to the more severe circumstances, I most definately take a step back - as Beany said you do literally go numb.

If a fight starts near me I'll assess it to see whether to break it up. I mean if there were two 7' 150KG Islanders having a go at each other I'd most likely just walk away as there is a very good chance I would end up worse off than them. Although if I don't feel I'm going to be seriously hurt I'd probably try to break it up. It's just the right thing to do.

I think the point isn't "if you saw someone in a car crash, would you run over and pull them out" but rather "if you saw someone in a car crash, would you run over and help them"

Regarding fighting, I think that the urge to just stand around and watch (or if you happen to be on the other side of the school, run over and watch) kinda goes away, but so does the urge to fight. The last time I saw people fighting I called the police.

In the event of a serious accident, I kinda believe the first response is to rush to assist those involved. I know that's always been my first reaction.

It's called the bystander effect where people fail to help another person as they subconsciously divide the amount of people at the scene and come to a conclusion that they only have an x% amount of resposibilty. For instance, 20 people in a situation such as someone being attacked by a thief would mean each individual feels only 5% responsibilty in helping the victim. A very famous case of this effect happened in New York where a girl was being stabbed to death in front of an appartment block and no one (despite obviously knowing what was happening, some people even saw it) helped or even called the police until 10 or so hours later.

It's a well renowned theory and many, many case studies have supported it.

I saw on some show where they did a fake car robbery, and the alarm went off.

Only 5 out of 200 people came to see about it or something.

morphix: the reason people do this (sit back and not help ppl when bad things are happening) is because they could be sued. If you try and help someone and things go from bad to worse (ie they die on you) you could be sued for a shit load of money. People look for scapegoats in those sorts of situations, and they like to make money off it, because let's face it, we all like money. This is true even to the point where if you attend medical schools, often one of the first things your peers will tell you is not to try help people when you are off duty, because if they do die, then you are likely to be sued if you help them.

I wouldn't rate the possibility of being sued that highly. For starters there is an obligation that if you see someone in urgent need of assistance that you help them. Having said that, if they need a doctor and you aren't one, it's not reasonable to expect you to be able to perform open heart surgery or anything. But you are expected to at least call 000. If you walk away you are liable to get sued which is pretty fair.

You'll find that courts and especially appeals aren't the mad house the media makes them out to be. It's impossible to determine if a case is fair or not without knowing the full details... which mostly the media doesn't bother to share with us. Secondly the US legal system and the Australian legal system are completely different.

While I'd admit you probably can get sued for anything (so lock yourself up at home right now), you only really need to worry if you do something unreasonably wrong. That might be deciding to amputate when you don't even know how to carve a roast dinner or walking away when a serious accident just occurred and you were first on the scene.

There's also provisions in place to protect people who are trying to help. It doesn't give you immunity, but if you're trying to help someone and you make a mistake, the judge will take it into consideration.

So if you're in a situation where someone needs urgent attention, the best thing you can do is help them to the best of your ability (probably this means calling the police and offering reassurance), don't do anything you don't feel comfortable with or aren't fairly sure it's the right thing to do, but don't walk away.


*Texta is not a qualified lawyer and everything in this post is only his opinion. This is for your benefit, not my protection.

I'd have no friggin' idea as to what to do in this situation, so I'd probably get on the phone and hold their hand or some shit. But the amount of times I've driven past a car accident and said, "That looks bad", and not stopped, would be getting into double figures. There's always a crowd so it's not really gonna help if I pull over, sit there and stare. Somebody else who's far more capable will come and help. I'd probably pull the dude out if he was in a gas-tanker, or if the situation was so serious that only I could help, but other than that...