Awfully Cold in Toronto

I imagine alot of people wouldn't of thought twice to take a look because it's so common seeing the homeless on the street.
If people stopped for every single person laying or sitting on a sidewalk downtown they'd be pretty late for work.
Harsh but true.

Thanks for pointing that out Jerrold. It is rather disappointing.

Gerrard doesn't have a bike path. It has a friggin BIKE LANE. The former is something that weaves through a park, the latter is part of the roadway. There is a big difference (and judging from the comments, this misuse of terms did cause some readers to misunderstand the writer).

As for the situation itself, having a crowd of people around one often produces the "someone else will take care of this" effect. Some people might also have the cynical thought that someone whose actions lead him to pass out from drinking on a busy urban road a) has more or less chosen his own destiny and b) probably can't truly be helped at this point. Though one flaw with that assumption (apart from cynicism and lack of care, should you regard these as flaws) is that the person might not be a passed-out drunk, but rather a crime victim or someone suddenly struck by a heart attack.

I would have reported this, if for no reason other that his presence on the roadway endagered other road users, in particular cyclists. Although any cyclist who managed to survive over two days of riding in the city is an accomplished obstacle dodger...

It is called compassion fatigue.

Damn. This used to be a public forum for Toronto users, I see you didn't like my comment casue it didnt agree with yours...though it wasn't degrading or profain in any way.



I thought this discussion was about this person lying at the side of the road, I can't even discuss them openly, its more about what you want and directing the forum. ..


Next time I'll only send comments that praise in hopes to get to join the discussion.

Maybe if he were lying in the car lane rather than the bike lane people would have stopped?

I had a similar thing happen to me on the TTC once. An elderly man had passed out (later discovered, due to heat exhaustion) just beyond the old movators connecting the two lines at Spadina Station. There were at least a dozen people ahead of me who walked right by him and they didn't even blink. I was horrified and called 911 who came promptly and thanked me for not being a heartless zombie.

This is a bit off topic, but once bicycles start respecting the rules of the road more, I'll consider them more like traffic then.

I agree with Thom's 'compassion fatigue' comment. It does happen unfortunately. But really there are citizens that do stop and help - I remember an incident at Queen and Bathurst with this guy(who was probably drunk or something) who could hardly walk and was trying with little success to board a TTC streetcar. Myself and several other people noticed when he stumbled and immediately sprung to pick him up. He obviously was not able to stand and had to sit(maybe lie) on the curbside. So in a 'what should we do moment?' we eventually flagged down a passing fire engine vehicle to help the guy. It was fortunate that this took place during rush hour at a TTC stop with a bunch of people around, but actually I was getting off the streetcar at the time and stuck around at least for 10-15 minutes before we flagged down the fire engine (and no I wasn't the only one trying to help).

Just google "bystander theory" or "bystander effect" and you will find a lot of info on this. It was one of the things I was most interested in when I was in university. I've always wondering if it is culturally specific. I'm sure there is info on that too... maybe I'll look it up.