Rubber-Necking, Heroes, and We Just Don’t Get It

Estimated reading time: 5 minute(s)

There was an auto accident right in front of our house today. Thankfully it did not involve any of us. Actually, it only involved one person – the driver of one vehicle, who collided with a parked car on the side of the road. But this story involves several different folks, and a peek into our human nature.

First there is the driver. For whatever reason she was obviously distracted, and not paying attention to the road. It’s a 30MPH road in front of our house… close quarters, with cars, people and other random things to watch for. She missed the car that was parked right in her path. Well, and then she did not miss it.

SCREEEEECH — BOOM!

I jumped from my chair and saw the accident out my 3rd story office window. Two cars… one driver. “Is the other driver unconcious? Or… dead???” I thought. The driver of the first car was pretty shaky, but managed to get out of the car without a problem. She did look very emotionally shaken up, and was holding her right wrist. (Later it was her left, so.. that was a bit confusing.) She was a middle-aged woman… but did not seem to have been in this position before. Crying, and obviously shaken.

Then there is me. I was in the middle of stuff that, compared to such a traumatic incident, seems a bit trivial. But, I was in the middle of it. I was working on trying to get some PHP and Javascript code to play nicely together. But my perplexing task was interrupted suddenly, rudely, by a loud CRASH outside my window. I got up, saw what happened… saw another guy come running to help… and was about to pick up the phone to call 911 when I heard that same guy say “M’am, please call an ambulence.” I figured he wasn’t talking to me… so I was just going to sit down.

Then I felt like a heel. How could I just sit down? Someone was really hurting right outside my house, and I was going to try and figure out my PHP puzzle… as if nothing happened?

Needless to say, after only a few seconds of debate in my own head… I got up and went downstairs to see how I could help.

To my surprise… Jen was there… and she was the “M’am” that the dude had asked to phone for an ambulence! (She was gone on some errands last I knew… so that was a bit of a shock. After a quick, disoriented conversation with her where I found out she had only moments early returned from her errands, I quickly was very thankful that she had not been in the street for this woman to run into.

Very thankful.

And, a bit impressed as my wife had jumped right in to a crazy situation… helping where she could help. Nice one, Jen! 🙂

So, with the situation seemingly “under control”, I did go back to my office to resume my scripting work.

But, it was hard to focus. After a few moments, I arose from my chair to check on the progress. This time I saw a few more people.

First there was the hero. This was the somewhat athletic-looking guy who hurried to the scene within moments of it happening. He took charge right away and was compassionate to the woman who was driving, and equally in control and helpful to others who were attempting to help. He was definitely the on-the-spot leader.

Then there were the police. They came in and had a similar leadership, but actually… their leadership was due mostly to the clothes they wore. Not that they were not good at their job, or not helpful. They were definitely that. It was just a bit different than the first guy to arrive.

Then there was the main “victim”. The owner of the other vehicle. At this point, as the driver of the car that did the damage was sitting on the side of the road in obvious physical and emotional pain, being tended to by the ambulence crew who had just arrived, one of the police officers was assessing the damage to this lady’s car. In the brief seconds that I saw her, she had two or maybe three very visible reactions of anger and disgust. Seemingly aimed at the incompetent driver who had just dented her bumper!

This was the saddest picture of human nature today. Our amazing capacity to miss what is happening around us. We are so good at seeing every event for how it affects us. Somehow, though another human being was clearly hurting only a few dozen feet from her, this car owner could only think of the damage done to her car, and I guess, what that meant to her. I can’t know her heart, but her body language was pretty clear.

I guess I would be mad too. (I know there are logs in my eyes…) But really. Couldn’t the very present reminder of the sobbing woman on the curb have jolted her into realizing there is more to life than a pristine bumper? Couldn’t she have thought about someone else in that one brief moment?

Maybe she did later.

But anyway… that short 5-10 minutes today was quite a fascinating look at multiple sides of our human nature. We’re easily distracted, yet compassionate. Selfless and quick to act on another’s behalf, yet selfish and completely oblivious to the condition of those around us.

It was a pretty interesting break to an otherwise ordinary day.