Empathy - a rare trait?

Today evening, while on my way back home, I saw an all too familiar sight these days - an ambulance in the midst of peak hour traffic, its siren wailing, pleading for people to give way.
I peeped into the ambulance to see an old, distraught lady sitting at the back - presumably someone close to her was being rushed to the hospital.
I watched the traffic inch its way through; I watched some vehicle riders/drivers trying their best to give way by moving in whichever direction they could, to create some space for the ambulance to go through. I smiled to myself and said - 'We have come a long way from those days when the vehicles would not bother moving to the sounds of a wailing ambulance'.
And then as I watched, there were 2 arrogant car drivers, who, on seeing some empty space created, shot forward, squeezed into the gap and blocked the ambulance's path again. It did not appear to me that they had a greater emergency than the ambulance to reach some place.
Just wondering even as I type - 'Why is it that some people have lost the sense of empathy? Could they not see what I did - the old lady, close to tears? What can be more important than a matter of life and death? Or is it that some people react only when tragedy comes knocking at their doorstep? Are we slowly heading towards a 'feelingless' world, where deadlines are more important than lives, where getting to some place is more important than a life or death moment in another individual's life?'
Still thinking...