To feel inconvenienced by a tragic accident?

[OnemargarIta]

I'm currently in Italy (staying in Rome) for three nights. It's my first foreign break in a warm country and I've been so excited and saved up especially.

We booked an excursion for today consisting of a trip to Sorrento where we'd spend time exploring, visiting shops and enjoying local food - and then on to Pompeii on the route back.

We've spent the whole morning/day so far stuck in traffic on the motor way. We are so behind schedule we can now no longer go to Sorrento first because Pompeii closes at 5.30 and there won't be time. A sit down restaurant meal will now be replaced by a takeaway which will be eaten on the coach.

We've just been told the cause of the traffic jam and it's because somebody has died in a collision on the motorway.

Instead of feeling saddened about the loss of life I just feel inconvenienced and pissed off that the highlight of my trip has been ruined.

Does this make me a shitty person? It just occurred that it might 😳

I'm not looking for sympathy, just giving perspective from the flip side.
You know where you can shove your Oscar.

I really can’t stand it when people try to guilt trip others. We all know people who have been through stuff and some of us have gone through it ourselves. I have and I’d never guilt trip someone else for thinking of themselves because it’s normal. The fact is, OP doesn’t know these people, she didn’t know the circumstances, if the person had family, children etc and when that’s the case, there is less sympathy because it’s is just an anonymous person. We wouldn’t cope if we started imagining who these people are, the fact they might have children and being upset at every tragic story we heard. We look after our own and others do the same.

Things can be more than one thing at a same time.

I live near an A road that accidents happen on all the time. The only way that can really happen is for at least one car in the accident to be driving dangerously and I'm fucking sick of it tbh. Things can be sad and tragic and also ruin your day due to the disruption

It's not guilt tripping.
It's more a case of trying to wipe the smug smiles off the faces of the clever arseholes commenting on here.
To put it in raw context, if you like.
I'm not competing with anyone.
Just explaining how some people on here are seriously pissing me off.
And even after giving context someone felt they had to make a snarky comment.
Mumsnet really is full of twats.

Also, do you feel better for that?

Yes I have a family member like this, they make out to the whole world they're kind and caring , maybe they are to some people, but in my opinion to the wrong people, they're absolutely vile to family, she's actually a nasty abusive bitch.

Some pratt whose life has fallen apart and whose mind must be an absolute turmoil. I prAy you’re never there!

Here you go: a 55 year old woman who was a pillion passenger on a motorcycle driven by her husband died when she was flung off it in a collision with a car: the husband is in intensive care. If you can bear to look there is a photo of the bike!

https://www.nanotv.it/2025/08/11/torre-annunziata-scavi-grave-incidente-alluscita-dellautostrada-morta-una-donna/

Does that make you feel a bit less cheesed off?

Perfectly normal to feel disappointed yes. To feel nothing but disappointment in this situation is actually pretty horrible. In her position I would be disappointed, but I would mainly be sad for the people affected by the accident and very aware of how lucky I was that it wasn’t me. That’s not virtue signaling, it’s the truth. It’s called empathy, something the OP appears to lack.

Also, if the trip was that important to her she should have planned better. It was a ridiculous amount to try to fit into one day with all that travel. Any number of things could have gone wrong to ruin it.

It is guilt tripping and it’s attention seeking behaviour. You are trying to make them feel bad. Why do you need other people to feel bad? Any care wouldn’t be real or have any depth anyway, their life won’t stop in the way that I’m sure yours did when you lost your BIL and mine did when I lost my uncle. Despite losing my uncle in an RTA, I still feel pissed when I get delayed due to an accident. We can’t be upset for everyone, we’d never cope with life.

I can understand why you wold be annoyed, but you can rebook and go another time. It is going to have no lasting implications for you, and I bet you will have forgotten about it in a few years anyway.
Meanwhile, there is a family out there that have received tragic and life changing news. This date will be etched in their minds forever.

“Be kind or I will call you an arsehole”

hmmmm 🤔

Why would it? It’s more guilt tripping. OP can feel disappointed about her day without it making her a monster. This is sad for this persons loved ones, but not the rest of us.

But YOU aren’t virtue signalling here.

I feel like some people on this thread, if they were on OP’s coach, would have filmed themselves falling about wailing and then posted it on their socials to show everyone just how ‘empathetic’ they are.

There is a big difference between empathy and virtue signalling. In some ways they are polar opposites.

A friend of mine has a SIL like this. Constantly posting on SM about how open minded and caring she is, supports all the ‘right’ causes. Is a twat and treats her little 5 year old daughter terribly.

I don’t need to think about.You’re laughing with op who has started this thread.I was interested at the start of thread, then it just took a turn, many of these comments have been deleted, so they can’t be cross referenced, op is denying, that there has been any talk of suicide.
l get it, l’m not saying everyone should feel sad, when someone they don’t know has died in RTA.I have some experience, with people, who have taken their own life or tried too, there’s no funny side to it, that’s where, l took issue in these comments and posters defending them, that’s where the thread took a nasty turn.
I realise this thread is not for me, it’s just pointless getting involved with arguments with people.
I do stand by what l’ve said though.

“BE KIND AND AGREE WITH ME OR I WILL SAY MEAN THINGS”

Hmmmm 🤔

Exactly. OP is essentially asking on their post “is it weird that I have zero empathy for the situation?”

And the answer is “yes, of course it’s weird.”

Others are trying to point out why it’s weird and try and explain the empathy that they might feel in a similar position. I don’t think that’s virtue signalling or trying to compete on grief?

Spot on

What an odd response - Pompeii is only there for you to visit because it was buried by a volcano, killing an estimated 16000 people in the region. I've nothing against it being a tourist attraction but don't pretend it's not a scene of mass fatalities.

There's about a 100 casts of dead people preserved by the pyroclastic flow.

That’s because what you describe ISNT virtue signalling or competitive grief. Plenty of people have managed to give another perspective to the OP without resorting to these measures.
FWIW, in OP’s situation, I would feel both disappointed and bad for the people involved in the crash. I think that’s a fairly normal position to take.

But some people are being competitive over it and it’s bloody tiring.

I do agree and I'm sorry you've been through this too.
It was the posters laughing that were pissing me off which is why I thought I'd give some context, (not for sympathy, I actually find sympathetic gestures uncomfortable), my context was to show that whoever died on OP's route was a real person with family members.
Not just an inconvenience.

I’m an awful person because my first feeling is always annoyed because I will be late or miss something.
I can remember being 4 hours late on the train to Edinburgh because someone died. I felt sorry for the train driver. I did receive a refund of my ticket. And most people on train were also pissed off. Because everyone was moaning.

I genuinely do think most people feel like that IRL too.