Don't stop and help people on the side of the road

America is not Leave it To Beaver-ville anymore. Be wise. Be careful out there.

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Nowhere has ever been 'Leave It To Beaverville' at anytime. Do not expect Hollywood or any media to portray reality.
The most help I can give is call the closest Police Office for you.

Several years ago a very good buddy of mine was deployed to Iraq, his wife and children waiting back home. One afternoon his wife loaded the SUV full, and took the crew to a family event. While driving down the interstate a driver crossed the median and they collided, head on. One of his eldest daughters was killed instantly, others hurt, and his wife was knocked unconscious.

A truck driver witnessed the accident and pulled over to offer assistance, but the doors were pinned shut from the impact. By now the other driver’s vehicle had caught on fire. As both vehicles had become entwined with each other, this quick-thinking Good Samaritan grabbed some chains, hooked up one of them, and used his rig to pull them apart.

He’d gotten burned badly in the process. But he saved my friend’s wife and another child from dying in that fire. Risk? That’s a risk. He did it anyway, knowing full well what was at stake.


We’d be in a lot worse place as a nation if people didn’t take those kinds of risks every day. From volunteer firefighters, to neighbors helping find neighbors in natural disasters, to all sorts of things good, decent people do when our conscience moves us to action.

How each chooses to live - including stopping to help strangers - depends on one's world view. I am a Christian and trust God to guide me in the circumstances I find myself in. I help strangers when it appears that they really need help.
I also Every Day Carry a pistol because there are people that depend on me that I intend to go home to. And I'm not omniscient.
With that said, I've given strangers a few bucks, help changing a tire, or even a short ride to home or to a store. There are other times that the circumstances or story they told made alarm bells go off in my head, & I politely declined to get involved.
So, yes, I help folks who seem to be in need but I'm not stupid enough to trust everyone.

Florida has what's called; Road Rangers.

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They are now sponsored by insurance companies like State Farm , Allstate, etc. Some roadside advertising in return for a guy that helps, whether it is a few gallons of gas to get to the next station, a minor on the spot re[pair, or a call for a tow truck - great concept and is used a LOT

I might stop if someone is in a dangerous situation like broke down in the middle of a busy road or if they flipped their vehicle or went into a retention pond, flooded ditch (I have actually come up on all of those). I DO NOT stop for flat tires or mechanical breakdown type problems. I personally kind of think people who don't have jumper cables or get a flat only to reaLize the used car they own doesn't have a spare or the spare is flat is reckless.

I will stop 4 lanes of rush hour traffic to help a sandhill crane or a turtle cross the road.. and I will turn my car sideways across lanes if I have to to keep the unfriendly people from speedig past me 10"inches from me or the animal.

A couple of weeks back a girl who appeared to be cracked out stopped me and said her car was low on fuel and she needed help to get home to her kids, could I help her.

Funny particulars that make this story hysterical. She pulled up to me at a gas station inside of a grocery store parking lot. When I was in the grocery store I saw her circling the parking lot several times stopping people. She had 3 large males in the Ford excursion she was running up and down the parking lot begging for gas money (I guess shes a lazy beggar). She pulled in front of my car at the gas pump and motioned for me to get out of my car and come to her.

I called 911 who stopped her AND GUESS who had drugs and outstanding warrants? ALL but one of the 4 lovely humans.

Post #54, emergencies, auto service...

I take issue with post #54.
If I saw a serious traffic accident or a dire event where by-standers needed to aid a injured person or rescue a small child, I would help.
A stranded motorist or someone off the road in a break-down lane is way different.

I'd add that auto care is important. If you live in a area with snow/ice/hills-winding roads, you need to keep your vehicle(or your wife/daughter/sister's) in good shape.
I agree with the mechanic/service location post.
In 11/2013, I was in rural PA for about 6 weeks. The weather was snowy with a few heavy storms. I had a Town & Country mini van I wanted to get checked out/serviced. The town had only 2 places that did oil changes/service.
You had to go in early(800am) and get a appt or you had no chance of having work done.

I used to stop for people with flats and broken down cars but back 2009-2010ish I lived in Orlando FL. It was near the UCF campus and was not known for reactive police officers or quality neighborhoods.

Well there was an increasing growin gproblem of the pretty little college girl in the skimpy clothes waving people down to help her with her flat tire...Of course in a college town EVERY GUY in the town would stop. Well behind the vehicle or around from behind a store or the woods came a few big guys or guys with guns who at best robbed them of their wallet and phone, etc. One student took a pistol to the nose and had his car stolen, a few were bound up and left somewhere, one was forced into the trunk tied up and stayed in the trunk as they went to his apartment, tied up his roommates while at gunpoint with a shotgun and the entire apartment was robbed.

I always carried a gun but one night around 1030-11PM I was coming home from drill weekend (Air Force Reserve) still in uniform and about half way home I stopped in a pretty desolate area for gas and next thing I know a car pulls up next to me with a pretty attractive girl in it. She gets out, goes into the store, comes out and her car wouldn't start. She asked for help and I came over to start jumping her battery but I heard her pop the back of her SUV (trunk? hatch?). I thought it was odd and I stepped back from the hood to get a better look and saw a gentleman walking around from the back of her vehicle. I stepped onto the curb near the window of the gas station and banged on the window to get the clerk's number. The guy who was in the back of the SUV started demanding I help his "girl" and I jump his car while aggressively approcahing me and speaking in a loud demanding tone. I stepped back and told him to stop right there and I was not going to take demands nor was I willing to help them anymore. He kept fast approcahing with his hands in his pocket.

I drew my Para Warthog and advised him to "back up" along with several expletives. I got into my car pulled across the street where I called 911 and was told the gas station attendant has already locked his store down and set off the alarm so they were coming.


I still to this day have some unanswered questions. There was only 2-3 gas stations in about 5 sq miles. So they literally had the dude in the back just driving around looking to find someone to pull the scam on? It was pretty good because they actually pulled in with the vehicle running and got it appear as if the battery was dead. How?

Look, I've had my share of helpful stops, but one evening a couple years back I came across a fresh traffic accident on the way home from work, half a mile from the house.

A young gal was walking away from it, looking a bit dazed.


I flipped on my hazards and pulled up beside her to see if she were injured. Didn't appear to be. She wanted to use my cell phone, which I said no to, but if she gave me the number I'd call for her.

She didn't want to do that, which I felt was odd. Then she begged and pleaded with me to drive her back down our little mountain to the convenvience store down the road. I told her I'd call someone for her, or she could walk. She stormed off, but by this time I could tell she was wasted.

Called the police, had a real good description to give.

They picked her up within minutes. Charged her with another DWI, and leaving the scene of an accident.


Yeah, there are all sorts of things that can happen. At this point in my life I trust my intuition enough to figure it out, and I don't put myself in a vunerable spot until I do.

Kleanbore said:

Hoe big a majority? 51%? 80%? 90%? Would any number less than unity be sufficient for a prudent person?

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So it's acceptable to punish 99.99% of your innocent neighbors if there is a .01% that are evil? Then perhaps it's also prudent to incarcerate newly returned Iraqi veterans because some have been involved in criminal acts? Should the prudent woman avoid all men because a percentage are rapists?

You cannot hide from evil, I was accosted outside the hospital I was working and only escaped serious injury through the grace of God and knee to the groin. Would I have been more prudent to stay on the base and the devil with the patients I cared for? At what point should prudence negate your humanity?

Ride to the mall....

Orlando or the city beautiful, , can have some sketchy places.
About 3 years ago, my friend & I were in his rented Volvo SUV by a Super-Walmart about 200pm in the afternoon. A young good looking girl around 20-25 can up & asked for a "ride" to the Florida Mall(a distance in Orlando of about 3/4mi).
My friend, who lives in New York and I quickly said: no.
The woman may have looked sweet & innocent but the whole thing was dicey.
A few months later, I saw a news story of a Orlando area incident where a young guy in a newer model BMW sedan "gave a girl a ride". She texted her ex con boyfriend who in turn pistol-whip the BMW owner & stole the vehicle at gun point(car jacking).

As I posted in a early message, be careful in these situations. Felons, street people & ex-cons sit around coming up with scams, lies & schemes all the time. Use common sense & good judgement.

Rusty

Amen. That's what cell phones are for.

We have "Road Rangers" in GA. They're called "Hero Units".
I see them all the time.

A serious accident, I would stop and help.
If I witnessed an accident, I'd stop and provide testimony and help (if needed).

Not much exciting happens to me.

I did pick up a hot hitchhiker once, in the mid 1990s.
Her boyfriend put her out of the car in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night. (So she said)

Unbeknownst to her, my pistol was in my left hand for the entire drive.

When we got to her apartment, she told me I could come inside for a while.
The hair stood up on the back of my neck, and I lit up my back tires getting the hell outta there.

By and large, I don't trust people. Most people I've met can't be trusted as far as you can throw them.

Yep, I'm cynical, skeptical, and jaded.
I wasn't born that way, but I grew into it.

Born and raised on Chicago's South Side.

Old enough to realistically know that living involves risk. Have actually been repayed with violence once when stopping to help.

Today at 66, I will still continue to stop and offer assistance, carefully. Not because I'm short sighted or foolish or careless, but because that is the kind of world that I want to live in.

There have been times that I've stopped to help and all went well each time. On other occasions, something caused that little doubt to start nagging me and I passed on by. I'm old enough to have learned to trust my instincts in these cases.

YMMV

I can't fault KleenBore or anyone else for their responses. They may be 100% right. Ultimately we all have to live with our actions and the consequences. I won't stop 100% of the time nor am was I born yesterday. I will concede that I might well be fooled by a bad person. That's a risk I'll take to do what I think is right. Again, I try to be prudent but I won't live in a world where no one thinks of anything but themselves. If that winds up being my last mistake, so be it.

FWIW I do think this applies to CCW, too. If coward and hero are the extreme ends of the same scale then we all probably think of where we might fall on that scale. Mr. Wilcox (the man that was killed by a couple cop killers at a Wal-Mart) did was he felt was right and died in the effort. But I'm not prepared to say he was completely wrong (although obviously he made tactical errors). I was watching a video by ex-SEAL and current trainer Kyle Defoor. In the piece he talked about good deaths and bad deaths. To him, a bad death would be knowing he could have intervened and taken out an active shooter but failed to try. He says nothing in the rest of his life would make up for that. Dying while taking out said killer he would consider a good death. We all will die one day, that is unavoidable. But we all can make of our lives, and our deaths, what we want. At least some of the time.

To bring this around full circle I don't claim I'm made of hero-stuff. I was just raised by parents that were heroes, at least to me. I've made it this far trying to do what I is right, can't see changing anytime soon.

I used to be concerned about stranded motorists, and what I'd do if I were in their shoes. Then, cell phones came along, and in the vast majority of locales, help is only a call away.....I realize not everyone has a phone...but *I* do, and can always report a person in need of assistence if need be

Either SD isn't nearly as dangerous as the rest of the US or I'm on borrowed time...or both

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If by "SD" you mean South Dakota.....Yeah, it IS just as dangerous as other places, or has the potential to be. Numerous cops have been shot in South Dakota in the past couple of years. We recently (last October) had an incident where police were pursuing a known felon. The felon called his cousin, who was a long distance away, asking for help. The cousin arrived on the scene, engaged officer's with a firearm, and was shot and killed, while his cousin escaped. The escaped felon retreated from Ft Thompson to Pierre, where he barricaded himself in a house for several hours, and fired upon law enforcement numerous times, injuring two cops. In another situation in Rapid City, officers stopped a group of people for drinking in public, and one of them pulled a .357 and shot one of the officers dead and wounded another. SD, and any rural state, is far from immune from violence. Given the fact the North Dakotan oil fields are a ntionawide draw, we actually have all kinds of people from all different backgrounds in the area, and the crime rate has increased as a direct result. No one is immune from the ills of society, and the days when one could claim "well, nothing like that ever happens here" are in a word, gone.

taliv said:

kleanbore, there's risk. we get it.

but most of us don't live our lives with an inordinate fear. we have a conscience and care about other people and sometimes we put ourselves in risky situations to help out strangers because it's the right thing to do. and we don't want or need the government to come "help"

the world would be a pretty crappy place if people didn't help each other.

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Well said.

I will notify police always, stop to help sometimes. I'll never forget the time I got a flat on my truck, and before I even decided what to do, there was a guy at my side, flat tire, eh? He asked me if I had a compressor and I said yes, so he asked me to blow it up while he tried to find the leak. He found it, plugged it with a compact kit he had, I checked it for pressure, and was on my way in less than ten minutes. Terrific guy, he wanted no money, just said somebody did a similar thing for him once. I've carried a plug-kit ever since.

Phaedrus/69 said:

I was watching a video by ex-SEAL and current trainer Kyle Defoor. In the piece he talked about good deaths and bad deaths. To him, a bad death would be knowing he could have intervened and taken out an active shooter but failed to try. He says nothing in the rest of his life would make up for that. Dying while taking out said killer he would consider a good death. We all will die one day, that is unavoidable. But we all can make of our lives, and our deaths, what we want. At least some of the time.

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I can't say I agree with this. Letting someone die that I knew I could have helped would be a hard thing to live with. However, if I died while taking out a killer, it would be a bad death for the simple reason that it would deprive my daughters of their father. The thought of that alone is worse than living with the guilt of letting someone die. My family and their well being is number one. This may come of as crass, but the hardship of a stranger will never, ever trump that. I will not trade the suffering of a stranger for that of of my family's.

For that reason, I my involvement as a good Samaritan is greatly reduced. Yes, I have and will continue to help strangers, but not at a risk to myself.

Sorry but I'm just not terrified of everything to the point that I won't stop and help someone on the road. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but I always have, and always will be the guy to stop and lend a hand on a 98 degree July afternoon when hundreds of others passed by because they were scared. One day I may get myself into a pickle doing so, but IL deal with that situation when it arises.

I'm kind of shocked that members of "the high road" are too good to assist others.