Why are some people a*******s ??????

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LeonF

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This is a rant !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Went down to the boat yesterday after a week to find someone had collided with it and cracked the starboard teak capping amidships..not a note, a phone call to the club. I can sympathise because of the Thames tidal rip if someone had a problem, it can happen to any of us....but to not take responsibity. It was a blue hulled boat.
 
I'm always hesitant to say that "young people today....." etc, but there definitely has been a reduction in honesty and an increase in selfishness. Shows in a thousand ways from petty insurance fraud, to lying after car or boat accidents, to petty theft from employers etc. And the people concerned would regard themselves as honest citizens. Indeed, lots would see it as "wet" to own up to something like your bump, or the [--word removed--] they fathered with some young woman, or the state of a car when they were selling it.

The motto today is "see what you can get away with"
 
I sympathise - got back to my boat last weekend and it looks like somebody collided with her as various bits of GRP have been chipped, and there is a dent in the GRP - no note, explanation ....sigh.....
 
Our toe rail suffered similar attention from s sneak off culprit. Keep quiet and clear off seem to be the unwritten rules I'm afraid, and it applies to damaged cars as well.

A spring tide ebb, at Bucklers Hard, always makes things interesting and Saturday was no exception. A group of boats moved off the hammer head to let an early departing Frenchman get to the outside of a raft. During the reformation one boat completely misjudged the tide and hit two boats quite heavily, with scores to the both victims gel coat and bent pushpit fittings on one of the boats. The perpetrator's apologies were accepted and the incident put down as a consequence of sailing, with no exchange of names etc.

Years ago my wife fell off of her mountain bike trying to squeeze by a parked car that had all but blocked a cycle trail. In doing so she scratched the car door with a brake lever and insisted on leaving a sorry note, with our phone number, under the car wiper blades. The guy took the trouble to ring and apologize for his selfish parking! Sorry does help.
 
I agree.....if there was a problem then to actually manage to leave a note etc could add to it, but the sailing club name is writ large and visible from the river. Some years ago a couple in our club went to the aid of a Dutch motorcruiser with engine problems pleading for a tow. They have a Twister with an auxiliary engine, and though prepared to stand by and assist were loathe to tow in strong winds. They did in response to the pleas, and sustained some considerable damage. Pursuing the other boats insurance was a minefield, as they were not adequately insured, refused to accept the blame, and it cost them £700.
However there are decent folks around. Our safety boat towed a yacht with a rope around the prop alongside the hard. We dismissed their imtention to dry out alongside, found stout persons to man the foredeck which raised the stern enough to remove the problem. They went on their way, but took the trouble to write in to thank all involved and made an RNLI donation. Not everyone is mean selfish and self centered these days....just a few **********!!!!
 
I just had a weekend away in France visiting an elderly friend who has retired there. During an excursion on Sunday his car ran out of petrol up a steep incline - not entirely his fault as it he it was a courtesy car given to him whilst his car was being serviced and it had a LCD display he was not familiar with and the petrol gauge was a bar chart and, when empty, the bar dissapears. Anyway, we stopped dangerously on a steep incline and blocked our side of the road. The car behind pulled up behind us a the local chap asked what our problem was. I tried to explain in pigeon French and he was very understanding. He offered to drive me to the nearest petrol station to get some fuel and I accepted his offer. As it happens Sunday is a bad day to run out of petrol in rural France as most petrol stations were closed. In the end he drove me to his brothers to pick up a fuel can (offered a coffee and plunge in the pool which I declined) and then to a hipermarket 45 mins away to buy fuel from a self service card pump. My UK c/card would not work so he offered to use his. In the end he must have taken 3 hours of his Sunday to help us. I overwhelmed by his hospitality and concern for us, without which our Sunday would have been a real ordeal. I could not help thinking that in the UK we would have been hooted and cursed for blocking the road and few people would have stopped to help us. We would have been seen as delay and hinderance to a journey.
 
This reminds me of an experience I had a few years ago. I was driving down France when my exhaust all but fell off (it was hanging on by the lanbda sensor). Anyway, I was in the middle of nowhere peering under my car wondering what to do when a frenchman pulled up and telephoned the local garage to come and get me.

Admittely not the level of generosity you got but I was still shocked to receive it. Have I ever stopped to help a foreigner in his early twenties? no, I'm far too busy.
 
Exactly the same happened to me on a jetty on Windermere a couple of years back. At the start of that season, I'd just made up a brand new pair of teak rubbing strakes for Avocet - three scarf joints in each side and I was dead proud of them. Came back to the boat one day to find that some utter scumbag had bashed about 6" of one end and taken some pretty deep splinters out of it. Even worse than that, when I phoned the company that supplied the teak, hoping to order a new bit, they told me that they no longer used the carrier that had delivered my original bits and that they now couldn't supply the same lengths!
 
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