Nearly had an accident

 Nearly had an accident

The other day I nearly got myself into an accident. According to New Zealand lifestyle, my life expectancy is 75% however, since I came to India, my life expectancy has dropped by 30%...lol

 

I have witnessed many small road accidents here and there but never thought I will encounter one myself. It was just a matter of micro-seconds I moved out of a vehicle's way. It was so close. I also came to know that many nationals won't help victims of road accidents. The reason is well explained by this article I found on BBC News:

 

If no-one helps you after a car crash in India, this is why

By Preeti Jha
Delhi

Link: Click Here

When a road accident occurs, bystanders will usually try to help the injured, or at least call for help. In India it's different. In a country with some of the world's most dangerous roads, victims are all too often left to fend for themselves.

Kanhaiya Lal desperately cries for help but motorists swerve straight past him. His young son and the splayed bodies of his wife and infant daughter lie next to the mangled motorbike on which they had all been travelling seconds earlier.

The widely broadcast CCTV footage of this scene - showing the suffering of a family of hit-and-run victims in northern India in 2013 and the apparent indifference of passers-by - troubled many Indians.

Some motorcyclists and police eventually came to the family's aid but it was too late for Lal's wife and daughter. Their deaths sparked a nationwide debate over the role of bystanders - the media hailed it as a "new low in public apathy" and worse, "the day humanity died".

But what safety campaigner Piyush Tewari saw wasn't a lack of compassion but an entire system stacked against helping road victims.

His work to change this began nearly 10 years ago, when his 17-year-old cousin was knocked down on the way home from school.

"A lot of people stopped but nobody came forward to help," Tewari says. "He bled to death on the side of the road."

Tewari set out to understand this behaviour, and found the same pattern repeated time and again across the country. Passers-by who could have helped were holding back and doing nothing.

 "The foremost reason was intimidation by police," he says.

 "Oftentimes if you assist someone the police will assume you're helping that person out of guilt."

The discovery spurred Tewari to set up SaveLIFE. In a 2013 survey, the foundation found that 74% of Indians were unlikely to help an accident victim, whether alone or with other bystanders.

Apart from the fear of being falsely implicated, people also worried about becoming trapped as a witness a court case - legal proceedings can be notoriously protracted in India. And if they helped the victim get to hospital, they thought they would come under pressure to stump up fees for medical
treatment. 

 In a country with smoothly functioning emergency services, bystanders often need to do little more than call an ambulance, do their best to provide first aid and reassure victims that help is on the way.

But in India ambulances are in short supply, sometimes very slow to arrive and often poorly equipped. This makes it a country in need of Good Samaritans - and according to Tewari there are many Good Samaritans out there. They just choose carefully when to leap into action

He contrasts the reluctance of passers-by to help victims of road accidents with their response to train crashes or bombs blasts.

In these cases, he says, "before the police or media arrives everybody's been moved to hospital".

The big difference with road accidents is that there are usually just one or two victims. "The chances of getting blamed are much higher," he says.

SaveLIFE filed a case with India's top court to introduce legal protection for Indian bystanders and a year ago there was a breakthrough when the Supreme Court issued a number of guidelines, including: allowing people who call to alert emergency services about a crash to remain anonymous providing them with immunity from criminal liability forbidding hospitals from demanding payment from a bystander who takes an injured person to hospital

Just two months later, though, another hit-and-run incident caught on camera shocked the nation.

"See how they're just watching?" murmurs Anita Jindal as she scans the CCTV footage, once again, on her mobile phone in the cramped room-cum-corner shop she once shared with her son, Vinay.

A speeding car had hurled 20-year-old Vinay off his scooter in east Delhi, and the footage shows a crowd of onlookers surrounding him, and doing nothing.

It went viral on social media last July, triggering a new bout of soul-searching, and was even mentioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his monthly radio broadcast to the nation.

"If someone had helped he may have been here today," says Anita Jindal.

"Everyone told me they were scared of the police."

For Piyush Tewari and SaveLIFE the struggle goes on.  

In March the Supreme Court guidelines were declared compulsory. To ensure that they will be enforced, the foundation is now campaigning to get each of India's 29 federal states and seven union territories to enshrine them in a Good Samaritan law.

 

The scale of the problem

·         Fifteen people are killed every hour in road accidents in India

·         Twenty children are killed every day in road accidents in India

·         One million people have died in road accidents in India in the past decade

·         Five million people were seriously injured or disabled in road accidents in the India in the past decade

·         The equivalent of three per cent of GDP is lost annually due to road accidents

 Source: SaveLIFE Foundation, 2014

 Shrijith Ravindran, the chief executive of a restaurant chain, is one person for whom this legislation cannot be introduced soon enough. In January he came across an elderly man bleeding by the roadside in the western Indian city of Pune. A gathering crowd of people was still deliberating what to do when Ravindran put the man in his car and drove him to hospital.

The closest hospital gave him a bunch of papers to fill in before turning him away.

The next one swamped him with more paperwork before tending to the patient. In total, he says, he spent three hours filling in these forms.

"They ask, 'Are you a relative?' The moment you say 'No', they don't do anything," says Ravindran.

"They wait for somebody to give them assurance that they will pay the bill.

Valuable time is lost."

The elderly man finally received treatment once the paperwork was completed, but it was too late. He died of his injuries.

Good Samaritans not to be forced to reveal identity: Govt

New Delhi: A good Samaritan, who rushes an accident victim to a hospital, will not be forced to reveal identity and the government has warned of strong action against police personnel and other officials who coerce such a person to disclose personal details.

A circular, re-notified to all states by the Home Ministry, made it clear that a good Samaritan shall not be liable for any civil and criminal liability.

A bystander or a good Samaritan, who makes a phone call to inform the police or emergency services for the person lying injured on the road, shall not be compelled to reveal his or her name and personal details on the phone or in person, according to the standard operating procedures (SOPs) mentioned in the circular.

"Disclosure of personal information, such as name and contact details of the good Samaritan shall be made voluntary and optional, including Medico Legal Case form provided by hospitals. Disciplinary or departmental action shall be initiated by the government concerned against public officials who coerce or intimate a bystander or good Samaritan for revealing his name or personal details," it said.

A person who gratuitously gives help to people in distress is called a good Samaritan.

Annually 1.4 lakh people die in road crashes in India and government reports suggest that at least 50 per of the fatalities can be averted if the victims are admitted to a hospital within the first one hour of a crash, called the 'golden hour'.

However, many people do not come to help those in distress with the fear of getting involved in police or medico legal cases. The notification was originally issued by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.

As per the SoPs, good Samaritans should not be harassed? or intimidated and such person must not be asked to reveal personal details, including full name, address and phone number unless he or she volunteers to become an eyewitness. 

PTI

First Published: Sunday, April 24, 2016 - 17:06

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