The U.S. and many other laws called "Good Samaritan Laws" that encourage bystanders to assist people who are endangered or otherwise need assistance, whereas without these laws the assisting bystanders might be liable for any injury they cause while trying to assist. Blame it on law school, but our first year torts class at the University of Southern California Law School taught us that in tort law you can be held negligent if your assistance causes further injury to the injured party who can then become a plaintiff and sue you, so that really warned me off against providing roadside assistance. (Law school is also good at teaching other morally lacking behavior like "contributory negligence is not a complete bar to recovery," as in even if you're a negligent pedestrian checking out your phone while crossing the street and get hit by a car, that won't totally bar you from recovering from the driver of the car. The law is tough and doesn't always reward good behavior.
Anyway, the Good Samaritan law comes from the Bible, Gospel of Luke, where the Good Samaritan sees a Jewish man on the road, beaten and hurt, and helps him even though he is of an opposing religion (Christian v. Jew). American has tons of hospitals named after the Good Samaritan- as I recall my sister was born at Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove, IL. Anyway, sometimes I wonder if I should be a good samaritan and help others- I do try to donate periodically to worthy charities, I give blood every 3 months or so, but is there anything else I can do in this world? MJ has encouraged me to help the environment by cutting down on meat and recycling as much as I can, but there are still plenty of times I feel like I'm not earning my keep, living a very comfortable life of good health and good financial health while others are suffering. But what can I do? And am I doing something just to soothe my gnawing guilt, or is it actually helping someone in need? One of the times I've settled on that I can help is a roadside incident, where someone despearately needs help now.........but I haven't really encountered those. I'm not sure I'm supposed to stop in the middle of a highway for someone who's having car problems off to the side, and would I even be able to help? I don't know how to change a tire, don't know how to jump start a car (I guess they're all on Youtube?) I did one time stop to give a guy walking in a park some water, but turns out it was a homeless man who had some mental problems and yelled at me to "leave me alone!" Help is hard to give out nowadays.
Today as I was running along my jogging path through a nearby university, I witnessed an unfamiliar scene: a deer was holding up traffic because it had broken one of its legs and was sitting down in the middle of the road. And everytime cars tried to get by it, it started trying to get up and run away, thus causing the car to almost hit it. Deers, it turns out, are more agile and move more quickly than humans, so its unpredictability was causing cars not to get by it and thus a traffic jam. So many things to think about there, whether to help the deer by blocking the cars, try to jump in front of cars to get them to stop; both are somewhat dangerous as the cars might not see a person in time, and trying to help a deer who feels hurt and cornered might get you kicked in the face. In the end, the deer limped off with 3 of its legs making up for what the 4th broken leg couldn't do, and order was restored. But then I thought of the deer, much like the Jewish man who was beaten and hurt in the parable of the Good Samaritan. How could I help? The deer had run off, and it's not like it would want me to get close to it; the only thing I coiuld think of was to call 311, the non-emergency equivalent of 911, got ahold of someone to report the incident, and then went on my way. Maybe the responsible citizen thing to do? Hopefully Animal Control or someone finds the deer and can fix its leg; it's tough to be an animal without one of your limbs and still survive in the wild for long.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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