What Tradition in your Country can Fuck Off?

My British friends call this phenomena "medical help", because if someone had a stroke on the street in England, people would carefully avoid them, while an American would stop and shout for an ambulance and someone to call 911.

On my first visit to London, I encountered this for myself. I was taking the tube somewhere from Leicester Square, and saw a woman with a suitcase get squished and stuck in the turnstile doors. She was reaching for her bag, which had already passed through and was about 6 inches too far to grasp. I asked if it was hers, she said yes, and I handed it to her in passing. I took about 10 more steps, noticed literally no one doing anything to help her escape the turnstile which she could not get out of (a short queue patiently forming behind her), and I turned back to get one of 3 station attendants standing around less than 3 feet away to help.

He was flabbergasted, and said "what do you want me to do about it?"... then after a bit seemed to realize that it was his job and who else could possibly do anything about it, and oh yeah, maybe people should do something about bad things happening right in front of them. Then he swiped his tube card and got her out.

She said thanks, I went on my way.

Lost a lot of respect for Londoners that day.

/r/AskReddit Thread Parent