Louisa Miller: Rubbernecking vulture or gawper, just keep moving

As a nurse who frequently drives with a doctor, I slow down at accidents to briefly check whether anyone needs urgent first-aid while waiting for the ambulance. These are our professional, legal and ethical obligations.

But I refuse to believe that all the people who slow down, causing up to half an hour of congestion at off-peak times, are medically trained, or even inclined to stop and offer assistance.

The only other explanation is that they are rubberneckers - human vultures who wants to witness another's distress, despite causing hold-ups and road rage likely to result in further incidents.

There is another explanation: gawpers. Entirely different from rubberneckers, they don't take particular pleasure in the distress and misfortune of others. They just gawp.

Mouths open, a string of drool slowly traversing their chin, no record of active brainwaves since 1978.

Rubberneckers like the thought of some other poor individual having their car towed, frantically ferreting round in the front passenger foot-well for the flask, shrilling at the same time, "Get the cheesy biscuits, Colin, it's a three-car crash!"

With Gawpers, the Missing Link comes to mind. Apparently up to date with the latest-technology cars, they are frozen into indecision when their world is rocked: "Look, Elmer, the car stopped".

All they seem capable of doing is slowing down in sympathy, while they desperately try to understand this phenomenon that is now in their day.

But Rubbernecker or Gawper, the effect is still the same - traffic congestion.

Come on, people. It's simple. Sensible, safe and considerate driving means staying to the left unless passing, and moving on unless stopping to offer assistance. End of story.

Perhaps this might result in less unnecessary traffic congestion and accidents.

* Louisa Miller is a Herald reader from Waiheke Island.