Unrestrained selfishness

From 3 pm to about 4.30pm is I believe one of the most dangerous times to be on the road. Especially around schools. Mums and dads and carers and grandparents and siblings and friends all rushing to get to school to pick up the kids, all running late, all distracted, all worrying about everything except driving.

So today right about the time the school bell sounds, we got sent as the closest available car (yes dual car response was cancelled way earlier in the day) so its just us to a car accident. A car has made a right hand turn across two lanes of traffic and got collected by a vehicle driving up the inside lane that "came outta nowhere". The driver was ok and was immediately telling us he had not been able to see past the mini-bus that was in the middle lane - but had gone blindly across anyway. I have to admit I was not really that interested in what he had to say. It was hot and it was his 4 year old son who was still sitting in the front passenger seat looking small and scared that had my interest. His passenger door had taken the full impact and nobody seemed to be paying him any attention.

We spoke to everyone involved and then asked if we could please have anther ambulance to transport the driver of the other vehicle who had some muscular neck pain. After a long pause - long enough for me to mutter to myself "its not that hard a question is it?!" the dispatcher finally and reluctantly offered us a car from about 20 minutes away. Yes please, that'll have to do. Thankfully the little boy was ok, he was only shaken but I wanted him checked out at a hospital anyway. I offered dad and his son a trip to hospital but he insisted he would get his wife to pick them both up and then head straight to the hospital. I gave dad a lecture about the danger of putting small kids in the front seat of cars, especially with airbags that are designed for adults. He mumbled some excuse at me and went back to ringing his wife.

The other ambulance arrived and we handed over the driver of the other car to the ALS crew. We pulled the ambulance off the main road and completed some paperwork while waiting for the wife to appear. Dad and son sat in our ambulance in the air-conditioning while the police arranged a tow truck. After a while a black Ford pulled up abruptly in the side street behind us. I got out and went to reassure the presumably anxious wife that her 4 year old son was ok. Neither she nor the 2 other primary school age kids in the car were wearing seatbelts. I was incredulous. Then when her first question was about whether her husband's car was still drivable, I was angry.