The kindness of strangers

[00:00.61] How much empathy do you feel towards other people?

[00:04.12] If you saw someone fall off their bike in traffic, would you stop and help - or just walk away?

[00:07.38] Many people would give in to apathy, go about their business and just do nothing.

[00:17.15] So it was a big surprise when about 100 bystanders got together recently to move a bus in east London to help a cyclist trapped under it.

[00:27.43] A video of the incident went viral on social media.

[00:31.19] According to Zoheb, a driver who stopped his car to take part in the rescue, about five people gathered to move the bus.

[00:40.71] He says: "There was no chance we could do it, it was more an invitation for other people to help, really."

[00:48.23] The initiative paid off. Diners from nearby restaurants joined in.

[00:53.49] There wasn't much coordination but it didn't take long to develop a collective understanding of what the objective was.

[01:01.26] Spontaneous collaboration among strangers doesn't happen often.

[01:06.03] People in a crowd are not sure what to do - they don't have a plan.

[01:11.54] It's one of the reasons bystanders often do nothing, according to Dr Mark Levine, professor of social psychology at Exeter University in Britain.

[01:22.07] "The presence of others can inhibit you from helping", he says.

[01:27.08] The key to positive group behaviour and intervention, Levine explains, "is building a sense of shared identity".

[01:35.34] Action has to be decided quickly, Levine says.

[01:39.35] "The longer you leave it, the harder it is to make a decision. If you don't immediately act then you kind of think 'Well, actually I probably couldn't have done anything anyway'."

[01:52.14] But the people who took the initiative like Zoheb might make a difference.

[01:56.90] The cyclist ended up in hospital and the images of the collective effort might inspire others to more acts of solidarity.