I disagree. A $500 car is nothing but a money pit. It has nothing to do with this other glowicky stuff you seem to think I’d want on a car.
I’ve driven plenty of ‘running wrecks’ that I had to constantly be working on just to keep them running. Once a car gets over a certain age, things are wearing out and need to be fixed or replaced with great regularity.
There is a big difference between being prepared and being scared. Suffice it to say that I’ve lived long enough and seen enough weirdness that I’d rather be prepared.
While it is true that there are more good people in the world, the raw statistics you suggest are very misleading. It is FAR!! more likely that a bad person will stop to check you out than a good person.
Most criminals, most thieves, most murderers, most rapists, most gangs, etc WILL almost certainly stop.
Most young female church going Sunday School teachers will not be stopping to help you out.
Do you even have anecdotal evidence to back up this statement? Even from your own experience?
As noted above. Most people have anecdotally stated that when they have been stranded, samaritans have stopped to offer assistance. I have yet to see anyone say that when their car broke down they were mugged or attacked.
Sure it’s possible that you could be taken advantage of…but as I said above I refuse to live my life sheltering myself from remote chances.
Of course I buy insurance, but I certainly don’t try to insure against stupid things. Insurance decisions are monetary decisions, not decisions about random events.
I usually stop to see if there is someone I can call for them - but on my way to/from work, I always stop to see if I can help at an accident or a stranded motorist.
The uniform gives people a lot of comfort and it calms everyone.
Poll: Suspicious Guy Sitting In Car: What Would You Do?
No, seriously, I think it’s paranoid to fear ill intent on either side. Almost everybody who’s stopped beside the road is there for harmless, mundane reasons. And almost everybody who stops to check is also harmless, and trying to be neighborly. I’ve been in both situations, and it’s not a big deal. You’d be surprised how far you can get by treating people as if they were human beings not unlike yourself.
And BTW, somebody may stop and check out–with only the best of intentions–an apparently unoccupied vehicle by the side of the road. Suddenly finding a person hiding in that vehicle would be much more alarming! It seems less dangerous to act like a normal person who has a legitimate reason to be where he is.
"Almost" is potentially a big qualifier…i.e., a game changer.
Even a trained healthy physically fit armed policeman always approaches an occupied car sitting on the side of the road with great caution and prepared to defend himself.
So, you never take risks that could cause you physical harm?
Do you ever play sports?
Do you swim in the ocean?
Do you ever walk on sidewalks adjacent to busy streets?
Do you ever fly?
Have you ever rode a horse?
Have you ever skiied or snowboarded?
I believe that your chance of physical harm or injury are greater in each of those activities, than waiting in your car for someone to stop and help you.
ETA: Actually you are probably in greater risk of another car hitting your car while waiting in it, than having someone stop and attack you.
So now you’re saying that the people sitting inside their broken down car are the dangerous ones? I thought it was the people stopping to take advantage of the people in the broken down car?
Police are trained to approach all cars with caution. That’s because they stop and approach multiple cars everyday of their jobs. People that are on the run from the law also have a tendency to become violent when they want to get away. To throw that into your argument doesn’t even make sense.
I’d just wait for my spouse to come, and wouldn’t be afraid at all. I wouldn’t think that a person asking me if I needed help had designs on dismantling my body. Three times in life I’ve experienced car issues on the road, two were at night, and once a guy even changed my tire for me. Saved me one of my AAA freebies.
Maybe I should be afraid of strangers, but I’m not.
With it being very cold out, he was probably wondering how long you’d already been waiting, whether your wife was going to be longer than you thought, whether you had a blanket or other “car trouble in cold weather” gear with you, and how likely you were to stay all right. Lord knows I’d think about all those things before I went off and left someone in those conditions.
Well, my personal experience and that of thousands of other people suggests that you are massively, seriously, wrong. I’m 4 for 4 on the people stopping to help me being good folks. None of them have been female Sunday School teachers, granted, so you may have a point about them not stopping. They’ve all been just your garden-variety decent guys who sure wouldn’t their mothers or sisters or wives stuck on the side of the road in 18-degree weather, in deep snow, or at 2 am while dressed as a rabbit (Halloween party.)
What kind of hell-hole do you live in anyway, that decent people won’t do the decent thing and try to help someone if they can?
I would be cautious, at that hour, on a side roadway, but I would never think, “I’m not armed!”, though if I lived in the Excited States of America, where most everyone is, I suppose I would.
