Bengaluru: Unfortunate but true, several road accident victims breathe their last because the onlookers resort to rather photographic and filming gruesome road accidents instead of helping the victims to reach to the hospitals.
Taking note of the situation, the State government is planning to not just institute the ‘Jeeva Rakshaka’ (lifesaver) award to honour Good Samaritans who help accident victims get timely treatment, but is also mulling to bring in ‘Good Samaritans Act’ to protect people who help accident victims.

Minister for Health and Family Welfare U T Khader said that the award will be given to individuals as well as hospital staff, meanwhile the Act will protect good Samaritans from police harassment, detention at hospitals and prolonged formalities.

A draft of the law has already been prepared, with the help of Save LIFE Foundation, a Delhi-based nonprofit whose petition in the Supreme Court prompted the Centre to notify guidelines on protecting good Samaritans. The draft is based on the guidelines notified by the Union government on May 13, 2015, reported Deccan Herald.

The Centre’s guidelines state that a bystander or Good Samaritan who might be an eyewitness of a road accident should be allowed to leave immediately after furnishing address and no question shall be asked of them. Besides, state governments should reward or compensate the bystander to encourage them to help the accident victims.

It may be noted that Karnataka is one of the states with a large number of accidents. As per the National Crime Records Bureau, there were 44,696 accidents in 2011.