Bad actions turn good character

The burning of a public motor vehicle bus last week in Port Moresby has angered the owner and so it should.
A young crew member of the bus tried to move the car to park it and ended up reversing it into a crowd of people at the spot, hurting several.
The unlicensed 13-year-old was chased down and caught and badly beaten up and the bus was burnt beyond recognition.
Buses cost tens of thousands of Kina, so one can appreciate the loss of the bus as well as the compensation claims that will, no doubt, be made on the same owner by those who are said to have been hit by the bus.
Whatever the nature of the accident, there is always a legal avenue to resolve issues.
It ought to be left to the victims and the offender to sort it out.
But no, it is often the case that bystanders who have absolutely no involvement in the matter often become the perpetrators of entirely new offences, such as hurting the driver of the vehicle or burning the vehicle.
It is a good thing, there was a police station nearby or the driver might have faced a far worst cast last week.
There are so many hit and run cases today, not because the persons in the offending vehicles want to run away but they do so for fear of their lives and their properties or both.
Nobody stops to ask who is at fault.
They see an accident and they immediately dispense crowd justice, in many cases by taking it out of the vehicles or the vehicle owners and whoever is in them.
It is often the case that a lone vehicle on a road hits some drunk or another person who walks on to the path of the oncoming vehicle.
The victim’s best chance for early medivac from the scene of the accident is the owner of the vehicle that hit him.
But the vehicle will not stop because of the danger that there would be far more serious danger to the owner.
Stopping to offer help is today not even an option.
To stop is to offer one’s self to serious or fatal assault and the safety of family members or other people in the vehicle as well as the security of the vehicle or equipment.
People hang about everywhere waiting for just such an opportunity to occur in order for them to involve themselves.
It is not that their sense of justice has been offended or that they are genuinely angry about the hurt done to some body.
They are just opportunists who want to cause damage to anybody and anything.
If in the process of assaulting the owner of a car which had just hit a pedestrian, the attacker saw the victim drop a wallet or a mobile phone, into the pocket would get those goods, before the attacker proceeds with his own crime of assault.
There is no duty of care or concern or of respect.
Should an accident victim be female and young, the by-stander has fun touching the women and it has been known that rapes have been performed on dead and dying victims of accidents.
This is the degradation and sad loss of humanity that is now prevalent in the culture and mindset of many people in particularly urban settings around the country.
And because of the attitudes and character of these people, it is creating unfeeling and irresponsible behaviour by default in people who would be decent folk in different settings.
It is time to find something to do for these people who wander about aimlessly looking for trouble.