Have you ever stopped to help someone on the road??

Komeuppance

Komeuppance

Mr. Old Man Merc
Joined
Mar 4, 2008
Messages
288
Location
The Hills, OR
Car(s)
The best car... in the world.
If I see someone along side the road, and I have time to stop and offer help I will. I usually assess the situation before I get out though, just in case.

So it's about 11pm and I'm driving home, and I see a car on the side of the road with it's hazards on. It's at a pretty odd angle. As I see it I'm already turning off the road onto another street, but I decide to go back and see if they need help, it is thanksgiving day on a nearly deserted road at near midnight. I turn around, I see a wheel on the side walk. About 100 yards up front is the car.

I pull up next to the car, it's right side is sitting really low. I roll down the passenger window and and the lady rolls down her's. I ask, "Do you need some help??" She replies, "I have no idea what happened." I don't think she even got out of the car. I calmly say back to her, "It looks like your wheel fell off." She gives a blank stare. So I ask again, "Do you need some help putting a spare on??" "No, my boyfriend lives nearby but he's not answering his phone." "Are you sure??" "Yeah, I think I can get ahold of him." I try not to laugh, but she's pretty out of it. I bid her good night, and turned around hoping she didn't see me trying not to smile.

It was a newer Mazda 3. I think she just had snow tires put on or something because it just snowed here. She must have made it pretty far without a wheel, because it was really far away from her car. Even before that she must have felt the vibration of the loose wheel. I wonder how much damage she did... LOL...

-Robert
 
Lots of times. Pushed cars out of intersections that have overheated, stopped to help people out that have hit kangaroos, dealt with minor accidents, given First Aid assistance whilst waiting for the Ambos to show up. Even picked a few motorcyclists out of ditches.

One in recent memory was a lady had stalled in the middle of a major intersection in the middle of town. Water gushing out from underneath (radiator hose had just given way). Lights changing, people have been sitting there getting pissed, but she has no idea. I put my car up out of the way and walk into the middle of the intersection and start pushing her to one of the nearby traffic islands. Just me. Not a single other person could be bothered. I got the hose off for her, walked over to the servo a block away, bought a hose, borrowed one of those water fillers and sorted her out. Looked at the other hoses and told her she needed new ones. She was really happy. Well, not about the fact that she was up for new hoses.

And then a week later, karma repaid me with 2 guys helping me get the wheel nuts loosened on my car when I got a flat and couldn't get the damn wheel off.
 
Yes, though for some reason I tend not to if I don't see what made them stop or if they don't try to flag me down. The main reason for this is people tend to pull over to have a whizz or do minor things, and I'm pretty sure they don't need my help to take a whizz.

Anyway, two instances stick out in my mind. Once, a girl in a van who hit some ice and nearly hit a friend and I, we took her into town to phone her parents to get pulled out. Second, when a guy had a huge blowout on his van. I stopped, but he said he didn't need any help, so I moved on.

I usually try to though, just because more than once I've needed help - thanks ZX2.
 
2Billion said:
Yes, though for some reason I tend not to if I don't see what made them stop or if they don't try to flag me down. The main reason for this is people tend to pull over to have a whizz or do minor things, and I'm pretty sure they don't need my help to take a whizz.
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Yeah, sometimes I'm conflicted about helping. Sometimes it's because the person who appears to need assistance is a lone male, and I am a lone female, and I don't always feel safe in that kind of situation. Sometimes it's because I'm not sure if they need help or not.

I once saw a group of young women unloading the back of their car. They could have just been looking for something, or they could have been trying to get to a spare tire. I was already on the access road (where they were stopped) to mess with something about my car, so I yelled a quick, "You guys ok?" "Yup." "Have a great day then!" "Thanks!" and we parted ways. I've rarely found a time when someone needed help and I had the capacity to offer it, given this era of cell phones. Perhaps as my knowledge of wrenching on cars improves that will change.
 
Yes. Most recent case was an elderly lady who had fallen over with her bike, and got her clothes snagged so she couldn't get up again on her own. She told me she had lain there for what felt like 5 minutes, by the side of a busy road, lots of cars passing by. Shit like that makes me really angry. Why can't people just pull over to help a helpless old lady. It's like everyone thinks "meh, someone else will surely help them, I'm running late for **** (or another lame excuse)".
 
I haven't helped anyone yet because tbh...I haven't seen anyone who needed it I think. Id hope that if I did see someone id stop though.
 
Sometimes. The last one was on a snowy road uphill. Mother with child on a Toyota Estate with summer tyres. She wasn't going anywhere, nor weren't all the people queued behind her, including me. I lent her a pair of Autosocks, I helped putting them on (with help from another man) and the lady could drive the last two hundreds meters to her house. She thanked very heartily and then disappeared in her house. Somehow, I felt not rewarded enough: I think if she could have offered something to eat or drink to both of us who helped.

Coming down the same street, later that day, I found another car needing for help, also a girl, with a very old Volvo, but she refused help, so I just went on my way.
 
I try to when I can.

I haven't seen anything lately though.
 
While driving, no. While walking or riding my bike, numerous times. Last winter for example I've pushed lots of cars free that failed to get out of their parking spots over the ice humps between where the wheels go on the road.
 
Cars - no - usually I see two cars blocking an entire motorway because the owners are trying to argue for right of way after a 2mph bump. Local drivers have absolutely no common sense.

If I see a motorcyclist in distress on the side of the motorway I will stop to assist. I can do basic repairs and usually have a couple of those aerosol tyre reinflators handy. Cargo space is the reason why I ride a big-ish chopper with lots of cargo and accessory space - I know what it's like to be stranded on the side of the road for hours while lots of idiots slow down to take delight in someone elses' distress.

I organise some not-for-profit DIY repair sessions for small-cc motorcycles too, so others can learn and share basic mechanical skills.
 
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It depends. If I'm in a sketchy part of town and the person looks sketchy then hell no. If it's a motorcycle, I pretty much always stop unless it's a big group of riders, then I figure they have it under control. If the person is trying to flag down help, then I will stop. If I'm off road then I will always check on them to see if they are ok.

If it's the middle of a severe storm, very hot or very cold and/or a remote area then I will stop. In those cases a simple flat or minor mechanical problem can quickly become a life-or-death situation.
 
I make it a habit to always do, unless it looks realy fishy.....I make my living on the road, it know all to well it sucks to be stranded.
I have helped people change tires, towed them to repairshops, up slopes in winter, and pulled a Golf out of a ditch.
 
Most recent one of memory a van was pulled off the exit of a highway, steam spewing from the open hood. Guy said he had just purchased it from someone and seemed like it was running fine. It was pitch dark so I couldn't tell if oil was leaking as well, either it massively overheated or the entire engine just let go. I gave him a gallon of coolant I had in the back of my car(I always seem to carry stuff like that, just in case) and left. Nothing else I could have done really.
 
An American guy and his wife in their 60s, had just picked up a small, eurobox rental form the airport. He was OK driving a manual gearbox, but he didn?t know how to select reverse on this particular car. It had a lift up toggle, like an auto, to select reverse.
So I helped him out and sent him on his way.

If I am asked to help, I will generally. But I don?t usually volunteer, because people may react strangely or think you are an axe murderer. :lol:

PS I didn?t beep a couple in an old Vauxhall and told them their engine was on fire. I was behind them and they hadn?t seemed to notice. :lol:
 
It's kinda dangerous to pull over on the side of the freeway, so I don't know anyone that'll do it usually. Plus with AAA just a phone call away...
 
Never really been in a situation to help someone apart from when I used to work at a servo and people would occasionally break down on the forecourt for whatever reason. Then I'm willing to assist them in moving their car out of the way and giving them full access to phones, any tools I have etc. I actually lent my tyre iron to one bloke who pulled in one right saying his girlfriend's tyre had gone flat a few km away. I probably shouldn't have but he returned it a few hours later, and I havent had any follow up calls from the police or anything so I gather everything went alright :p

Now that I think of it, I do remember an incident probably nine years ago or so. My friends and I were riding our bikes along a quietish country road just out of town when we came across a crashed car with a young female inside. She was pretty out of it but we recovered her phone and managed to call the cops and ambulance. Then we kinda made a mistake by answering the phone to her irate boyfriend and told him what had happened. So he and a carload of aggressive mates screeched up a few minutes later, though luckily the police arrived at about the same time. She was breath tested and they searched her car and that of her boyfriends. Things started getting ugly and we decided it was best we leave...
 
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Viper007Bond said:
It's kinda dangerous to pull over on the side of the freeway, so I don't know anyone that'll do it usually. Plus with AAA just a phone call away...
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Indeed, I realised that I couldn't help anyone for months as I couldn't stop in time, until I got into the routine of deliberately scanning the road shoulder 1km ahead for 'clients'. Add reflectors on panniers, high vis jacket as someone (TVR-161) said, and I have my own emergency service :D

Highway recovery here takes about two hours to arrive, and they'll just dump your vehicle out of the next exit and forget about you.
 
Only time I've seen someone that needed help, well, their car was there but they weren't, lol.
 
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