Why don't people stop to help anymore?

[WrendaleCountryDogs]

I've just been driving and came to a set of cross roads on narrowish roads. A car was stopped with it's hazards on. Other cars mounting pavement to get passed. As I get closer I realise the driver, a young early 20s woman was stood outside the car visibly upset. I put my hazards on behind her and ask if I can help. Car stalled and now won't start. She doesn't have break down. She's got baby in the back. She's tried ringing 3 different family members and nobody answering.
Now I'm 35, female, and recovering from a slipped disc in my back.
I quickly manoeuvre my car more safely behind hers so other cars can pass, tell her to get back in her car and release the hand break and I'll try to push the car across the cross roads to a grassy area . This means pushing the car across traffic. Thankfully it'd a 30mph road going through a village. Fair amount of cars around though as its just been school drop off time and another road is flooded meaning cars are diverting to this road.

Anyway to cut a long story short, I struggled to push the car on my own. So so so many cars drove past, still mounting pavement to get past, people looking at us (I realise it possibly looked like we'd had a bump with me being behind her car). I'm not sexist at all but so many men looked and didn't help.
Eventually a man with a dog out walking saw us and came over to help and we got the car safely onto the grass.

It took a good 10 minutes from me pulling up to us getting her safely across the road. My back is hurting a lot again now. But I couldn't just leave somebody. Certainly not a young woman.

Why don't people help any more? I get it was school time, people have to get to work etc but there could easily have been an accident.

Not to do with a car but my mum (70) was walking my dog when she was spooked by something and pulled on the lead, resulting in my mum face planting the pavement. A group of construction workers were standing about 6ft from her, not one of them offered to help despite her bloody, scraped face. Makes me very sad that she was on her own and nobody helped her, she even passed a number of people on her way back, blood dripping down her face, visibly upset and they just looked the other way.

I have always taught my kids you should always stop and help someone if you can. If someone needs help and it’s too dangerous to intervene directly or you are not sure if it’s safe then you can get a safe distance away and call for help. We’ve seen vehicles stuck in dangerous situations before and if we haven’t been able to stop we have called the police. I would never do nothing.

Similar happened to us once. Car completely failed at the give way point to a busy roundabout - it was automatic and stuck in 'gear' so my husband and I had no chance at all of getting the car to the side of the road to make it passable with just the two of us (we did try) so hazards went on, recovery were called and our children were safely escorted out of the car to wait under a bus shelter.

Rather than try to help most motorists gestured rudely, shouted even more rude things and beeped at us whilst mounting the pavement to get around. After about 5 minutes of this a man stopped and blocked the traffic purposefully and recruited anyone who looked fit enough to help us 'bounce' the car off to the side so we weren't in the way any more.

I get that many people are in a rush so maybe can't stop to help, but the level of abuse we had for daring to have a car breakdown was ridiculous - there was no need for that at all.

I was trying to change a tyre in a City side street after I got a puncture. A very young man stopped and did it for me. I was incredibly grateful. I have breakdown but had been told the wait was about six hours which would have created massive issues with picking up kids.

And the lone woman scenario scam is an urban myth.

A housemate had her car breakdown in the outskirts of a City. She was alone and this was before mobile phones were common. She knocked on various doors asking to use their phone to call and everyone kept turning her away. She ended up going back to her car and sitting in it crying for ages before someone came out to her car and said she could use their phone to call breakdown. She was so upset even by the time she got home and I saw her. She said when she was crying in her car it was getting dark and she had no idea what to do and felt totally alone. She was in her early twenties at the time.

People are stressed and hurrying.

Mornings are horribly rushed, and there are few bosses who would accept 'I stopped to help a lady who had broken down' as an excuse. If a company is paying for your time, they expect you to put them first.

This morning I had school run, then a hosp appt, then a video call at 10am. I wouldn't have stopped.

If she'd broken down on a Saturday morning, that would be different, my time is my own.

I think you are looking at it the wrong way. In 10 minutes both you and the retired mechanic stopped to help.

Also I think most people passing would assume that if two people were already dealing with it then it was under control. No need for everyone to stop.

Happened to me. Broke down in the middle of a busy road. Tons a men in vans mounted the pavement to get past. A police car did the same. Who eventually stopped to help? A woman with a baby in the back. Looks like we women are on our own .

And the lone woman scenario scam is an urban myth.

Except that it isn't. The details of the scam may vary but the key ingredient of 'lone woman' distress is the one constant. I have been approached in the street more then a few times with a 'I have lost my purse/been mugged/car broken down around the corner' could you possible lend me x amount for a taxi etc.

And the lone woman scenario scam is an urban myth.

Except it isn’t. It’s happened to me — twice.

Now, I suspect that in both cases the women involved the bait/scam were victims as much as I was. Trafficked, human slavery or similar. But nevertheless, it happened.

Interesting. The two women who approached me (on separate occasions) were impeccably well dressed and well spoken. Both had claimed to have broken down and both asked for cash for a taxi home. When I started to politely quiz them their stories just fell apart. "Can you call an uber" - oh my phone battery is dead - "Where is you car, I'm a pretty decent mechanic I can have a look at it" -oh it is miles away" - "I can call a taxi if you want to collect you from here" - I left my purse in the car - etc etc , this was in SW London.

Asking for cash is a scam. That is different from a lone woman broken down in a car needing help to push her car off the road. That is not a scam.

I have breakdown cover and still waited 2.5 hours the other week for the AA.

A friend with the AA, who are crap, waited five hours in the evening last week for them to attend. She ended up going home by taxi and came back the next day. Because the car had broken down in a car park it was low priority for their breakdown.

I wouldn't have stopped either. My safety is my priority. My husband stopped to help a lady who had crashed into a low wall once, her husband then reported him to the police for crashing into her. Which he absolutely did not. Took a lot of hassle and upset to get it sorted out, obviously it was a false claim.
But also, If I'm driving, I'm busy. In my way to work or to collect my children.
They can still ring for assistance even if they don't have cover. Breakdown providers will still attend or local garages sometimes will come out too, they just have to pay more. Emergency recovery service will assist if it's on the motor way.

You actually put yourself, and this lady and her child, in more danger by pushing a stationary, broken-down car over a crossroads. You could have called an emergency provider for her. .

@GinoVino What emergency provider? The police won't come out. Breakdown could be hours. There is no one to call.

And this is the issue. Everyone thinks it is someone's elses issues to sort out. Someone official. But usually there is no one. So people just suffer instead for the few hours until breakdown come.

The flip side of the question is why didn’t you look after your needs more?

She could have called breakdown cover. You could have looked after your back more and known your limitations. Someone else stronger/with more capacity to help might have stepped up if you hadn’t already been there. How do you know she didn’t have the capacity to calm herself and sort herself out? The other drivers would have coped and the traffic would have cleared eventually without you getting involved.

Is the reason you’re cross with others because you haven’t looked after yourself and no one else has known to step in and save you from hurting yourself?

Is it possible your annoyance/questioning seems to stem from screwy priorities and a lack of trust in yourself and others? What could you do differently next time to elicit the trust and goodwill from others that you want to see in the world?

@Iwritethissittinginthekitchensink If you call breakdown it can take a few hours to come. There is only so much one person can actually do alone.

wise to have a warning triangle in your boot and breakdown number stored in your phone. Every driver should take that personal responsibility for keeping themselves and everyone else safe.

@Iwritethissittinginthekitchensink I and others have posted about situations where we call breakdown and they take hours to come. A warning triangle fine, but it does not stop a broken down car blocking the road and other car drivers being abusive.

Had exactly the same scenario a few months ago: car broke down waiting to get onto large roundabout, in the middle (of 3) lanes. Most just manoeuvred around, but we did get abuse, honks and rude hand gestures from many while we waited for help. We just did it back! One person pulled up and asked if they could help. Transport police towed us out of the way and said that in their experience people were increasingly unhelpful and often abusive to people with car trouble.

OTOH, I fell off my bike in Amsterdam a couple of weeks ago and a veritable hoarde of people picked me and my bike up, made sure I was OK, offered me drinks etc. I was so embarrassed I wish they'd just pretended not to notice!

Not disagreeing that 5 hours is crap but not sure how this story is relevant?

A) it makes perfect sense that a breakdown in a car park (i.e a safe location for the driver)is given less priority than someone on the side of a motorway, why on earth would you suggest this is unreasonable?

B) in op's incident the breakdown wasn't in a car park so if the woman who had broken down had cover presumably it would have been given a higher priority, particularly if she'd said she had children with her/car was blocking a road etc.

C) it's all hypothetical anyway, just because your friend had a long wait on 1 occasion that just means your friend had a long wait on 1 occasion, could have been completely different with another time/place/provider - I broke down outside a friend's house before so even safer/more convenient than a car park and RAC came within half an hour, its just circumstantial.

Sadly not a new phenomenon at all - bystander effect was first identified in the 60's.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect

I can see the mentality though. It is peoples own fault if their car breaks down blocking the road so their issue to sort.