The Great British Public hit new lows

[HardStaringBearFromDarkestPeru]

Yesterday morning I was driving on a busy main road, plenty of traffic. I notice a young girl walking along the pavement on the opposite side.

She's is wearing just a T-shirt, no shoes & is Middle Eastern in appearance.

Next mini-roundabout I do a U-turn, drive back with my hazards on & get up on the pavement in front of her, getting a lot of abuse from other drivers along the way.

The girl is about 8/9 years old, really placid & keeps saying her parents are up ahead but don't worry she knows where her house is.
She was wearing knickers along with her T-shirt but nothing else - she told me she forgot to put her trousers & shoes on that morning.
English was her first language, she was unsure of her name yet was content to sit alongside me, a total stranger with a different skin colour to her own.
She was almost abnormally docile - it was really disturbing to see.

The 999 call handler was brilliant.
As soon as I mentioned child safeguarding & my fears for both our safety, she dispatched a vehicle before I had given her any details beyond my name & address. The car arrives within 10mins of my call.

The officers were fantastic with the girl & she was happy to get in their car. They even guided me back into the traffic.

She was a young girl on her own. At first glance she looked naked from the waist down. With her skin colour she stuck out like a sore thumb in a predominantly white area.

And yet people just drove straight past.
Disgusting behaviour. This isn't loo roll or petrol, we're talking about a young child. Just when you think the Great British Public can't sink any lower, they do.

(I've not heard back from the police but they have my details. I hope the girl is now safe)

I agree with OP a great deal of the time no one wants to 'get involved'.

Well done OP but I think you're making a leap assuming that people were racist for not stopping (since that effectively seems to be what you are saying).

Clearly this was a situation where something wasn't right. But just because you were the first person to stop doesn't mean nobody else would stop because they're racist.

Not in "her part of town"!??

Most people wouldn't get involved for fear of being accused of something, particularly men. Do you not see why?

Don't know why the skin colour is so relevant, you really do mention it a lot.

@DetroitNeedsADog

Not in "her part of town"!??

This... WTF!

Still, well done OP - everyone knows you are amazing now

Sounds like you could have caused an accident by stopping where you did as well

@dontgobaconmyheart

I don't see what it has to do with skin colour to be honest, and find the extremely intense focus on it rather odd.

Obviously you were correct to call the police OP, from the information you give the situation sounds very upsetting and one can only hope it is not all as sinister as it appears on the face of it.

We live in a complex society and sadly people do and will continue to be unsure of approaching situations where something is amiss, for a number of reasons. Rightly, or wrongly. It is very possible the police were informed by other parties at a similar time; they would not appraise you of this.

I'm not sure I really understand the purposes of the post in all honesty. I don't think the details of her state of undress or skin colour are necessary or appropriate for others to know and would have kept this private personally.

The details of the skin colour and state of dress are relevant. Both were pertinent to the fact that the lady noticed her. Well done OP, you were absolutely right to take action and I hope there's a happy outcome.

@LateDecemberBackInLowB12

In all honesty it sounds like a bloody dangerous place to stop. Nothing to do with 'the public' and everything to do with safety/not even noticing.

If you wanted to share how you helped her then you could have just done that, what you did was lovely, you didn't have to do it by stealth. We all like a pat on the back every now and then.

That's ridiculous "A dangerous place to stop" well if a deer or fox leaps out at you you bloody well slam the breaks on. Experienced road users should know to expect unexpected stoppages. That's why you should always keep a proper stopping distance and be alert on blind corners etc.

OP you did a good thing and I feel sad for that girl.

I did similar when i was early 20s. I was driving in London and an old woman had fell and was bleeding, her shopping basket was all over the pavement. She was literally splayed out on the pavement. Cars were driving past her. This was leafy Putney , i was a nanny. I stopped and helped her up and drove her home. Her neighbour was weird with me and shooed me away, i felt a bit put out with that . Anyway I'd never have driven past her but plenty did.

People are fucking weird.

You did the right thing OP , I would have done the same, the safety of children is really important and people should make more effort.

I do understand why a lone male wouldn't stop though.
Hope the girl is ok

Well done for getting the child into safe hands OP. I don't think people all deliberately or intentionally drive on by. It's just that they only have a few seconds to compute what they have seen and not everyone would be tuned in enough to react as you did.

I don't think it has anything to do with the British Public. I'm mean you are the British Public, and you stopped and alerted the police.

Well done for helping her

I don't agree with the excuse that a lone male couldn't stop. When I was a lot younger I was taught how deal with a dangerous situation. If I saw someone in distress but didn't want to endanger myself, I was told to stay in my car near the scene where I could see what was happening but call emergency services to deal with it. Any lone male could have done the same.

Lots of trolls on this thread going on about trivia, as trolls do.

Well dont OP for taking responsibility where many would not.

Well I was not expecting this when I saw thread title. I thought it was going to be about people panic buying petrol or something.
Why do you say the “Great British public” instead of “all the people in my particular town who drove past this little girl”?
I might live at the opposite end of the country to you, why are you calling me disgusting for not helping her?

Well done for helping and I hope she will be OK.

I do think though, that when people are driving they are focusing on the road ahead and not taking in what they are driving past, be it buildings or people, unless the people are acting dangerously very close to the kerb.

It's pretty awful that nobody on foot stopped to help, although again. I could understand why a male person may choose not to.

Well done OP for being responsible. I think a lot of people unfortunately display bystander apathy.

There is a chance that people just genuinely didn't notice like you did. People driving to work, things on their mind, concentrating on the road. Not everybody looks out for people who are 'not in their part of town' and wouldn't think of it is significant that someone of middle eastern appearance was walking where you clearly think they didn't belong. Well done for helping her though.

You did the right thing. You don't need to harp on about it or draw massive conclusions about the state of the nation from it.

As for
I've been to events here where there have been no non-white faces. I've read people on MN saying that as PoC they moved from a big town to an idyllic little village & found it uncomfortable as they were the only non-whites there.
You moved to a less diverse area and therefore more people are white. What did you expect? You can't exactly force the handful of non-white people living locally to attend every event to make the audience more diverse. I think this attitude to less diverse areas is every bit as intolerant and ignorant as racism, tbh.

Driving - well you keep an eye on your surroundings - people do walk off pavements into traffic.

Of course, as a driver you are aware of your surroundings, that's obvious. However I don't spend time looking at what passers by are wearing etc.

People just don't want to to help others any more. It's something that is happening a lot now especially post-Covid

Not in my experience.

That's ridiculous
"A dangerous place to stop" well if a deer or fox leaps out at you you bloody well slam the breaks on. Experienced road users should know to expect unexpected stoppages. That's why you should always keep a proper stopping distance and be alert on blind corners etc.

All drivers must keep an eye out on what pedestrians are wearing, their age and their demeanour in case they need to make an emergency stop to question any of those things? Not exactly the same as having to do an emergency stop in an actual emergency, is it? Op, herself, had to double back and pull up on the pavement on a busy stretch of road, so it does sound bloody dangerous.

Its quite clear the op thinks nobody stopped because she is the only person in the area who isn't a racist, and felt the need to share online so people would say what a good person she is and its absolutely nothing about the public at all.

@iklboo

OP, you did a good thing. Well done. You also just witnessed the bystander effect in action, as pps have said (a sociology lecturer I knew used to illustrate it annually by pretending to have a heart attack in front of a full 300-seater lecture theatre). You sound rather confused about the race element — are you suggesting that a non-white child in a white area should have been more visible to passersby than a white child? Or that passersby did not act because she wasn’t white?