A video of Tokyo pedestrians ignoring an ambulance even as it begs them to make way and stop using a scramble crossing for long enough to let it pass has lately been causing much outrage online, with many leaping to condemn the heartless folk of the capital.
The video:
Online there is outrage and much condemnation of Tokyo residents – notwithstanding the fact that many of the commenters are likely to be from Tokyo – as well as the sort of defensiveness which might be expected of a people who wait at crossing lights for 5 minutes in front of an empty road:
“This is horrible!”
“What is wrong with these people?”
“I am shocked at how ill-behaved these people are.”
“I had no idea Tokyo was this bad a place.”
“This is worse than I imagined. Mass psychology is scary stuff!”
“I can’t believe this is Japan.”
“These are not Japanese, they are Tokyoites.”
“What scum!”
“And I thought Chiba was bad – this is atrocious.”
“Pedestrians are nasty. They used to scatter when the ambulances shouted at them…”
“Well, if you just stopped, the people behind you would just go nuts.”
“It looks like the Shibuya scramble crossing. At a place like that, stopping would be the harder option.”
“This couldn’t really be helped, due to the design of the crossing. It wouldn’t happen on other types of crossing.”
“Stop making excuses about being pushed along or there being too many people to stop. Don’t you have any common sense? Didn’t your parents and teachers teach you anything?”
“Stopping a big crossing like that might actually be the more dangerous option.”
“I can’t believe these people are even human. They have lost their souls!”
“Tokyo inhabitants are rotten to the core. I’m ashamed to be from the same country as them. Don’t they know about ambulances? Did they study so hard they forgot to learn any morals?”
“I can imagine there being one or two idiots, but what the hell is with this?”
“I cannot believe it, but there it is in the video. And to think the world praised Japan for its morals in response to the quake.”
“What would you expect from Shibuya!”
“Getting home is so much more important than some stranger’s life.”
“Tokyo people think they’re so cool, so well mannered, but on the inside they are scum!”
“It makes me sick to think these people are the same species as me!”
“This is the bad side of the Japanese character. Behave according to group psychology, everything is someone else’s problem. Someone collapses on the train, or gets sexually harassed – someone else will deal with it.”
“Hopefully an earthquake under Tokyo will wipe out half of Shibuya!”
“Ishihara was saying the earthquake was divine punishment for the greedy and corrupt Japanese. Seeing this, Tokyo deserves it!”
“What do you expect, Tokyo attracts all the country bumpkins!”
“All the people bashing Tokyo and Shibuya residents – less than a quarter of the population there actually comes from Tokyo.”
“Japan has no morals. I can’t believe this would happen in Europe or America.”
“Imagine what you’d feel if a member of your family was a patient on that ambulance. This is no different to those Chinese people pretending not to see someone in need.”
“It’s because Tokyo has lots of foreigners. They probably aren’t Japanese.”
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Wow, zero blame on Koreans, and only one against foreigners in general.
That's a new record. That's gotta count for something.
All those folks are no different than those folks who in china who neglected that little chinese girl when she got ran over.
Just goes to show assholes are everywhere not just in China
^This.
watching the above video clip and just taking a brief look it doesn't look like there's many "foreigners" in the crowd so I'm guessing it's still blind disdain for any non-japenese types.
Sometimes, have a bull bar covered with rusty nail, fixed on your car is a good thing.
In France, people are more respectful of firemen (or SAMU's ambulance), even in Paris, capital of individualism.
In america this is illegal. Your putting someones life at stake.
I was gonna say that. You never see any of that in Canada.
Infact I'v seen a traffic jammed 2 lane bridge split into 3 lanes just for the ambulance in Canada.
The word hitoGOMI (crowd, but gomi can double as meaning human trash) applies so perfectly to this crowd.
That's standard practice here in Eastern Europe as well. You see ambulance on the sirens, you GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WAY, even if that means driving into the pavement or even roadworks.
Of course, Ambulance with sirens on still has right of way over pedestrians on the crossing and generally pedestrians aren't dumb enough to force it otherwise.
This happen a lot in China.
GTA TIME! PEDESTRIANS! GET MONEY BY RUNNING THEM OVER!
Japan's full of overpasses..at least in their highways if not within city limits
The important question is whether if the patient inside the ambulance is safe or treated.
The F**k! I re watched the vid and the people looked it was just normal, I mean sure not to make such a ruckus when an ambulance goes by put these people looked liked there wasn't even anything going on
On a side note I hope the ambulance arrived just in time though >.>
Just build a overpass.
are there enough people in canada to crowd a crossing?
Only when hockey teams win or lose. then we come out of the woodwork.
Also illegal in Germany :/ This really is shocking, they walk by as if there were just 2 normal cars standing ... outch this hurts, I hope nothing big did happen!
Agreed. Here in germany we go like "HOLY SHIT AMBULANCE!! MOVE LOS LOS BEWEGUNG!" when we see an ambulance coming our way.
In Quebec, we suffer from potholes...
??????????????????????????????????????????
in africa children-makers bet who can make the child with the longest longevity. i think its 5 years without aid from the parents?
Stupid Japs
The difference usually the ambulances only switch their alarm on when its urgent. In Japan they do it for all kinds of reason. For instance when someone has just a cold or headache they sometimes decide its cheaper and more convenient to call an ambulance instead of a cab or going by the subway. And then they switch their alarm on. Which they also do when they want to drive to their station in time without anyone inside at all. So of course people don't give a damn anymore after a while when 90% of all ambulances are empty or carrying a cheap bum. I live near a hospital in Tokyo and I've seen them plenty of times myself driving with their alarm on then just switch it off and the driver comes out and just walks casually away.
So this is essentially a 'boy who cried wolf' type of scenario for society where we are so numbed by false alarms that we tend to ignore them. here in singapore, whenever we here a fire alarm. we usually just ignore it or wait for it to stop since it is nearly always a false alarm/drill too.
Did you mean those fire drills they always have? or the pranks by students in school?
I get what you're trying to say since I myself is already numb from these fire alarm but I still think that scenarios like this would most likely not occur here in Singapore. That is what I believe.
And the cops spend their time chasing down men who walked beside a girl rather than the pranksters.
When there's a fire alarm, I run when I see fire.
I see a lot of this as well, police especially taking advantage of their cheap ass sirens just to cross a red light so they wouldn't have to wait, only for them to turn it off as soon as they cross.
And before anyone tells me "well they turn it on and off afterward since they're trying to get to an important call somewhere, but not important enough to keep the lights/siren blaring full-time and/or they're trying to reach an area without attracting too much attention if necessary."
Yeah? Watch this and tell me if you would normally be able to tell the difference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZJvihI8nfo
Lights weren't on in this case, but you know, abuse of power and all that, which is what we're talking about here.
well, I've seen ambulance did that, but if i hear the siren, I'll still give the way for the ambulance. i don't want to gamble with people's life.
As you said, lights weren't on so it has fuck all to do with this. Your demonstration video shows ‘just’ an ordinary accident.
And since we aren't able to tell if the sirens are switched on with good cause, we also can't say ‘well most of the time there's no one in there, or just someone with a cold’ either. In other words, it's just a lame excuse for putting your own 5 minutes before someone else's life.
There are several reasons that they may not use their alarms. I don't know if it's just the way it is in Japan to use the alarms during any time there's a passenger in medical need of any type, sort of like a cab light going on when there's a passenger, but I know that there are several instances where police and ambulances aren't totally in need of blasting sirens, noise laws included, at all times. Getting through an intersection that way is a bit strange, but if they are in fact trying to get somewhere to back up another officer, they can do that without causing havoc in traffic.
This is speculation of course in the described instances, considering there are also plenty of corrupt police officers, just like any other profession containing its share of incompetents and assholes.
O_o... noise laws?
"There's too many laws to learn man!"
"Your Honor this is bullshit!"
lol, MyWay Juggernaut Bitch 3 parody XD
'
VERY First thing that came to mind :P
fire engines do that too but thats cause noise laws prevent them using the audio part of their sirens in populated areas without an obvious need, such as crossing an intersection
>>"So of course people don't give a damn anymore after a while when 90% of all ambulances are empty or carrying a cheap bum"
Cheap Bum? Are you talking about people who call out an ambulance for a cold, or implying worthlessness of a homeless person?
So what you're saying is "dont get out the way it's just a false alarm"
@14:44 20/03 anon
I'm truly surprised. I thought this kind of thing only happened in the shitty 3rd world country where I live. Many people here learned to ignore ambulances for this same reason (me included).
And how can you be sure there's no one inside this time?
Would you keep working if the fire alarm goes off at your workplace, even if you know it's probably a false alarm? Or would you still leave the building just to be save?
This is the same thing, if it's your life or someone else's shouldn't matter.
The thing is, when the fire alarm goes off, 100% of the people (well at least at my country) would just ignore it, like someone mentioned above.
Specifically in the US the procedure when you see an emergency vehicle coming with their flashers/sirens on, you are to get off the street or to the side of the road.
However we have the same sort of mentally deficient people in the streets both on foot and driving vehicles. Sadly the laws involved are never enforced to the level they should be, a few token cases in a ten year span, but nothing at the level that'd teach the morons to get out of the way.
I wouldn't doubt if most of the people that do such stupid things complain about response times of emergency services.
In every europe country also .
In Northern Europe, if there's sirens then there's an emergency happening.
In some Southern Europe countries however, police, etc, often use their sirens for personal convenience. Guess who has more respect for emergency vehicles?
Same goes for Tokyo, they use them all the time here...
Darn right. In America, it's "MOVE, bitch. Get out the WAY," and the people do it.
As for comments like, “It’s because Tokyo has lots of foreigners. They probably aren’t Japanese,” these 2channers are just feigning ignorance. I've been in Japan for 8 months, and drivers are generally hesitant to move for an ambulance. The ambulance has to carefully inch into an intersection for fear that some jackass will come blazing through.
It's 2channers, they're not Japanese.
That's probably because our Ambulances could plow right through a Hummer if they felt like it. Nobody fucks with that!
Yes, it's illegal here, and I've seen it happen, but I've never seen anyone arrested for it.
its illegal, but the most they can do it fine u a few hundred dollars. a few being 300+
In America, the amber lamps would have started pushing into the crowd a little aggressively.
Sometimes I think emergency vehicles need cow catchers or water cannons or, something. (Well, disregarding fire trucks, that is.)
Looks like it's time for the Diet to pass some new legislation.
Motion to install water cannons w/coaxial beanbag guns on all ambulances!
or a front bumper with spikes and sickle blades on the wheel
How dare you make a comment that makes America look good and Japan look evil...
Don't you know this is Sankaku where Japanophiles think Japan is PERFECT and can do no wrong.
Whereas America is horrible and never does anything right...
Nice trolling.
he's not trolling, he truly is dumb.
There's a rumor that anonymous is a CIA disinformation campaign.
this guy's actually an ideal japanese
It's saracasm, not as easily detectable when you're reading it as opposed to hearing it.
Fucking retards!!!
Apparently, Sarcasm never works when you offend Japan.
Good lord....Japanophiles rule this site with an iron fist!
@16:12 Close but not quite. It's a recruitment tool.
I am from the Trolls United Front, and I can assure you that guy isn't with us. I think he's from the United Front of Trolls.
i bet 5 bucks he actually is a devouted troll of the trolls united front also know as anonymous online.