To detest gawpers.

[MrsLouisTheroux]

We were in a queue of traffic because a man had been hit by a vehicle. He was lying on the road and had lost some of his clothes. The ambulance/ police arrived as we were sitting in our car.
I was horrified that so many people in front of our car got out of their car to have a good old look. We could just see the man from our car behind theirs ( he was being attended to by others) and it was clear and obvious that there had been an accident.
The number of rubber neckers who got out of cars/ opened doors/ leaned out of windows to get a better view was unbelievable. They didn't go to help, they were gawping.
The cars started to move and the one in front of us actually stopped alongside the man to have an even better look. WTF?
AIBU? Am I the only one to think that this is awful? The people driving in front of me seemed to think it was ok

[perplexedpirate]

I was definitely in shock. I had to go back to work and they had to put me in the staff room drinking sweet tea. The emergency control staff were lovely. I was trying to describe what happened and was just talking rubbish and they were so nice.
I really feel for people on here who have helped at emergencies, it's really hard, especially afterwards, when you have the adrenalin crash.
And then people want to name call.

[tallulah]

In the case of your specific OP no YANBU and I can't see why anyone would want to get out of their car to look at an injured person on the road.

But with big accidents on the motorway, neither DH nor I have ever slowed down deliberately just to look, and if I'm driving I keep my eyes on the road, but surely it's human nature to want to know what has happened? If I'm a passenger I will look to see if I can work out what happened - oh it looks like the red car was hit in the side and the blue car is damaged at the front - I'm not looking at/ for injured people. We do end up wondering how on earth did that happen as we drive on.

Plus there's that concern of "it's a blue Honda - is it my mum's car" sometimes.

I agree it's sick to be videoing and taking photos. Why would you do that?

[yellowballoons]

I dont look. Partly because I am a bit suqeamish, and partly because I always think, if that was me lying on the road, I would most certainly not want people trying to crane their necks to get a good look.

[perplexedpirate]

I can't stop thinking about this thread. It's really upset me.
I'm also reminded of the time my brother was following a friend up the motorway, passed an accident, 'gawked' and saw that it was her. He pulled in and was able to talk to her to keep her conscious as they cut her out of the wreck.
Please think about other people's situations before throwing such horrible insults around. I don't think I or my brother deserve them.

[frostyfingers]

I think the emergency services should carry those big green screens they use at racecourses when horses have an accident. They roll up quite tidily and it would give the people involved privacy and hopefully stop "rubberneckers" causing an accident as they trundle by looking at what's happened.

[saintmerryweather]

i wasnt calling you a sick bitch pirate and im sorry if i have upset you. your situation is obviously much different from the person i was talking about. you werent filming, taking pictures or posting live updates to an internet forum, you were at the scene, trying to help and found yourself unable to. i think.there may well be people in your situation at accident scenes, which is absolutely understandable. if i came across an accident i.wouldnt have a clue what to do, having no first aid training at all so i would probably still be standing there waiting to see if there was anything i.could do to help.

again thats much different from analysing a crash scene as you drive past, helping to cause tailbacks so you can try to.work out what has happened