By continuing you agree to eChinacities's Privacy Policy .
Sign up with Google
Sign up with Facebook
Q: Why don't most Chinese people help when there's an accident?
I've heard you are liable if you help; seems phoney to me.
GuilinRaf:
I know two people personally who got sued when they helped. A foreigner in Guilin and a local here in Beijing.
It is real.
There are many stories of the good samaritan being blamed for causing the accident, and they end up paying "compensation" to the "victim". Beware of being the good samaritan in China.
LAR:
Wise words cooter. I have also read of Chinese citizens who helped others and they were ****ed over. :( I read about one Chinese Good Samaritan that was so distraught that he took his life! :(
There are too many cheaters and rubbishes in these years,it's common to see kind people helping the others are held responsible at last.So,i think we really can't blame people for not helping the others facing such things,we just have learned to protect ourselves.I have asked many friends the same question before,they are not cold people,actually most of them are quite cool,kind and helpful.But almost all of them said they wouldn't help if they face such things. The other reason is that most Chinese don't know how to give first aid because we are not taught how to deal with it when we were kids,this is different from that in west countries.
GuilinRaf:
I do hope that in the future, laws protecting those who help (We call them "Good Samaritan Laws" in the US) will be enacted to precisely protect those who try to help.
This used to happen in the US (and it still does) that is why we had to make laws to protect those who help.
snowballeffect:
Very few people in the 'West' know how to give proper first aid. Even if someone, like myself, learn it 20 years ago when I was a teenager, I wouldn't remember much of it now.
The problem is that there's not much of a safety net here, whereas in the UK for example, if you had an accident by no fault of your own there's usually some method of compensation available by law whether it be insurance, civil law suit, or compensation from the gov or a company. These are all established and regulated channels. Health care system is also all encompassing and free so that makes things better too. As a result of all this there's less people trying to scam you like that, so more people would probably stop and help. That said there's still plenty of other dodgy activities goin on back home!!!!
stan118:
i think you have a moral responsibility to at least call for an ambulance, back at home no one expects you to put you first aid to use the most useful thing you can do is explain the the paramedics what actually happened, and in the meantime find out something from the victim just to keep his mind of the accident until help arrives
snowballeffect:
Can't recall ever seeing an ambulance in China, do they have them......
my thoughts are that the locals just pick themselves up and carry on after an accident............. after all, it was an accident......... where as in the western world, they run to a lawyer to try to make a buck that they don't deserve
I also believe that if the accident was seen and truly was an accident, that they would provide the required assistance .............. Chinese no different than anybody else ...willing to help when needed and happy to get the hell out of there when not needed.
I wonder if it's "most" people that don't help, or if it's just those are the only cases that go viral on the internet or news.
Like others said though...too many scams going on. On Chinese new years I saw a lady laying in the middle of the freeway with a guy huddled over her. If this was in my home country I would have stopped to see if they needed help. In China my friends just kept driving though.
I asked why they didn't stop and they said the same thing, said it might have been some sort of scam. Also they pointed out if that person really needed help for that girl he would have been running in front of cars trying to get them to stop. Something I didn't even think about
