You’re driving past a laboratory where animal experiments are carried out; there is a group of perhaps 50 people carrying out a (legal) protest demonstration outside, there are police officers present, but they are outnumbered ten to one.
One of the protestors somehow trips and stumbles out into the road immediately in front of your vehicle and you cannot avoid knocking him down - he bounces off the nearside wing, but hits his head on the windscreen, he falls to the ground, obviously injured (although probably not fatally).
You stop the vehicle (as you should), but a number of the protestors turn nasty and approach you, a couple of them snap the poles off their placards and start brandishing them as weapons. The police officers are too busy controlling the rest of the crowd (which has now become very unruly).
You honestly feel that your personal safety is under threat and that you may be seriously injured if you stay at the scene.
I think that your own personal safety must come first, so you may have to jump in the car and get out of there, meanwhile dialling the 3 digit emergency number of your choice and advise someone of what has happened.
I suppose someone will be in soon with a legal opinion more appropriate for GQ.
I posted it here because I want to know what a person should do (i.e. what would the police expect of you), rather than what various people think they would do.
Leave the scene, if possible (Weigh your risks wisely. If you don’t flee and get beaten up, bad. If you try to flee and get chased down, worse. If you stay and try to explain your case to a raging mob, could go either way)
Report to the nearest police station.
Explain your reasons for fleeing the scene.
If you skip 2 and 3, the case against you will get more serious.
If you report immediately to the nearest police station, the courts (if a case arises) will take cognizance of the fact that you had reasonable cause to flee, and did so in self defense not negligience.
Atleast that’s how it works here, to the best of my knowledge.
I would lean on the horn, put the car in drive (or reverse depending on where the poor fellow landed) and SLOWLY begin to move. Only the craziest of zealots will purposefully stand in front of a moving vehicle. Hopefully, that would get the attention of the cops.
These probably could have - the police presence seemed rather thin -perhaps because protests at this location are a regular occurrence and have always passed off without incident.
But, Mangetout would they really have attacked you instead of helping one of their own?
Please note, I have stood in front of a moving truck, been nudged by it, and pounded on it’s hood with my fist in retaliation. All while I was busy calling 911 on my cellphone.