This is a very good point I will try to remember in the future. I think I’ve changed a tire twice since becoming a licensed drier, so at this rate, I’ll be in my 60s next time. (And I hope I’ll STILL be able to say, “Thanks, I’m about done,” to anyone who stops to help a friendly, attractive sexagenarian. :D)
A basic fact of life is that tires are heavy. Many women, but fewer men, lack the strength to wrangle the sucker out of the trunk, off the wheel, etc., not to mention the lug nuts that have been tightened with a power tool. I once tried to change a tire, and even standing on the tire iron and jumping up & down I couldn’t budge it. I was much younger and in reasonably good shape at the time. So yes, while I know in theory how to change a tire, I would probably be physically unable to do so now.
I think it matters on some small level. I’ve shown my wife how to change a tire but she couldn’t break the lug nuts loose with my four way wrench, let alone that crappy one that came with the car.
I’ve only ever changed tires for two strangers. One was a man and one was a woman. Both were in the parking lot of the store that worked at through college and both were so obviously at a loss about what to do, that I offered assistance. The man was ready to call a tow truck but was worried about how to pay for it. I seem to remember giving both of them the lecture about not driving far on the spare. 
If I pass a woman who’s got the jack out of the car, I assume she’s got it covered and don’t think twice about it.
For those women who want the added security of being able to change a tire I would recommend a compound wrench (it’s geared to multiply force) and a 12 volt air pump. In many cases, you can inflate a low tire enough to get you to a station. I’ve rescued quite a few cohorts at work with my compressor at the end of a day.
Compound wrenches like the one listed above have a 32 to 1 gear ratio which means you would only have to exert 8 lbs of force to move 250 lbs of torque. 8 lbs of torque is within a small childs range of force.
My grandfather liked to say, “Every boy should know how to use a needle and thread, and every girl should know how to use a hammer.” Oddly enough, my mom can rebuild a VW Beetle engine but can’t actually figure out how to use a hammer.
Teach her how to change a tire. AAA once let me down. Luckily, they were a convenience for me, not a necessity.
One thing I find strange are the offers by the unknowledgeable. It’s one thing to offer to help when you know how to change a tire. It’s another to offer when you have no worldly clue unless your help involves using your cell phone to call AAA. As Magiver correctly surmised, no I don’t want to do minor car repair work. (I would also gues that neither do most men). So, when I was younger, if someone offered, I’d take them up on it. More often than not, I’d end up wanting to snatch whatever back from them because they were floundering. (Of course, that’s not nice, especially for someone who is trying to help)
I don’t know if a male mechanic will stop to help another guy change a tire, but I’m pretty sure that a guy who doesn’t know how to change a tire won’t stop to help another guy with the job.
Please tell me that you also taught her how to change a tire. If she can call AAA so she doesn’t have to do it, then great. But if she’s out on a country road somewhere and her cellphone doesn’t get a signal…
My mom made sure my sister knew how to change a tire. Mom taught her to change a tire before she started teaching her how to drive. (My sister is the one who taught me, the following year.)
Travelling along a mountain road, she had a flat tire, no cell phone service (so AAA wasn’t coming), and she was miles and miles and MILES from the nearest town or working phone. Changed the tire herself without a problem, which is a much better alternative than walking along an unlit mountain road at night, trying to fiond a phone, and running into a bear or being hit by a truck.
And FTR, the only time I’ve had a flat was near some tiny town near Guelph, Ontario, an area that was at the time, notorious for being a cellphone deadzone.
I’ll stop and offer assistance to anyone who is standing next to their car looking confused and distressed. Male or female.
There was a time where there was a group of guys standing around a really nice Mercedes, and trying to flag people down for help. That time I stayed in my car and just offered my cellphone. They looked like a bunch of guys going to a family function (they all looked related), but just in case it was a scheme to carjack me or something, I figured I’d rather stay in my car so I could zoom off quickly if I had to. Turns out they just couldn’t figure out how to get the fancy hubcaps off the fancy car. But Mercedes has an excellent roadside assitance deal.
ETA: The guys were also really grateful that I stopped to lend them my phone. They’d been standing on that very busy highway for a pretty long time and no one stopped to help.
I’ve often stopped to help people. I confess that I will be more likely to stop for a woman.
There was once I stopped for several elderly black ladies, all dressed up, including hats.
They told me they heard this terrible noise and their car wouldn’t go anymore. I soon discovered that their driveshaft had come loose, at the tranny. I told them how lucky they were that it hadn’t caught on something. They chose to stay w/ the car, so I stopped at the next exit and called the police for them.
On a different tack, I was crossing over one of our NW passes and they had the “chains required” signs up. Hanging iron was my least favorite part of trucking and, in days gone by, I rarely ever used chains, or really needed them, but times change. I got out, resigned to my fate, and started laying them out. This car pulls up behind me, Bimmer, Lexus, something like that, and this very well dressed, attractive, woman, maybe late 20’s, early 30’s, walks up to me and asks, as if it’s her due, can I put her chains on her car. Her attitude didn’t inspire me to be helpful and I still had three sets of chains to hang on my rig. I told her she’d have to find someone else and went back to what I was doing. A few minutes later she did a U’ey and went back down the mtn.
I’ve also heard women truckers on the CB trying to get guys to help them chain up. I figure if you want to do the job, then you need to be prepared to do whatever comes w/ it.
Gender does matter. I’m female, and I’ve driven some crappy beaters in my day.
For the most part? I’ve dealt with them on my own though or had some guy (when I was younger) be a nice Dad type guy. “Do you girls need some help?”
I’ve also had nice bonding experiences with other women “Hey, could you give me a jump start?”
“sure, do you have cables?”
“oh yes!”
me: “I’m good at changing tires”
her: “Isn’t it fun being butch?”
I had a DIESEL Ford Festiva that blew tires monthly. I have sat in the hot sun and changed tires while people that knew me walked by.
I have stopped to ask if people needed help on the side of the road. Especially if there are kids. (I’ve been there. It’s Texas. It’s hot.)
Call it sexism, call it chivalry, whatever, gender matters–to me at least. About the only reason I’d stop for another guy was if he appeared infirm/incapable. OTOH, I would almost certainly stop for a woman. (The OP mentions that she had the job well underway, so I probably wouldn’t have stopped in that case.)
And one more thing…
Can’t say I blame them for delivering this lecture–I work in a shop (won’t call myself a mechanic) and you’d be surprised how many people (of both sexes) drive up with a ‘doughnut’ spare that has obviously been on the car for days/weeks or otherwise un-roadworthy tires. I’m not talking about minor damage like slow leeks or nails/screws either, I am talking about bald to the point of tread separation, broken belts with massive distortion/bulges, large foreign bodies still in the tire; IOW, things that are a threat to anyone in the vicinity of this vehicle at speed. The scariest part is that most of them respond to critical commentary with obliviously triumphant grins, as if they are proud that they made it to the shop with having to change the tire themselves. :rolleyes:
My daughter has helped me rotate my tires, so she does know how. It would be a lst resort, knowing her, however. Might chip a nail, ya know. 
I’ve actually had cops drive past me without stopping while I was changing a tire. I seriously doubt that would have happened if I was female.
? 
Personally, if I am not breaking the law, I would not expect a cop to stop.
Thank you for the tip. I’m not sure I would have done this.
Cop stopped for me when my distributor cap blew and I was waiting for the tow guy. But then again, it was on the highway.
I’m another who says Yay, dads! But poo, strength! I can change a tire - doesn’t mean I can get those damn lugnuts off. I also know how to change my oil, etc. I don’t do any of this, chiefly because I don’t have a driveway to do it in and feel icky doing it in the street (ah - apartment living) but I know how.
As for the gender thing, absolutely. I would never stop to help a guy. I wouldn’t even think he’d let me. Guys - if a girl did stop for you, would you let her help you? Or would your pride be wounded?
I know how to change a tire in theory but the 2 times it has happened to me I could not get the lug nuts off. Even when guys stopped to help me they had a hard time with it.
If I see someone who looks like they have things under control, or who obviously have a cell phone I usually don’t stop. If people look lost or like they are trying to flag someone down, I will at least stop if I can and offer a phone. And if I witness and accident, spin off, etc. I always stop.
My husband stops for pretty much anyone of either gender, unless it is obvious they already have all the help they need. During our Michigan winters he keeps tow straps in the back of his truck to help people who are stuck. He’s almost too kind hearted sometimes - he will stop for anyone, anytime! That’s one of the things I love about him though :).
Thank goodness for people like him. I’ve been saved on dark snowy nights when I just needed a little push out of a ditch or a ride to a house to call the tow truck. {{Velma’s hubby}}
Males are, statistically, more likely to commit violent crimes.
So no, I’d never stop for one.
I’ll help ladies only, & ladies with kids especially.
I once saw a guy stop to help a woman and stopped also, because I thought the other guy would be unlikely to pull anything icky with another guy watching.
It’s something I’m good at, so I tend to stop and check if it doesn’t look like the situation is well in hand. My family towed a camping trailer from Denver to Key West, and up the east coast during the arab oil embargo of the 70’s. Dad was worried about gas shortages, so we carried 6 5 gallon cans of gas in the trailer. This overloaded the tires, and we went through perhaps a dozen of them on that trip. By the time we got home, Dad and I could change a tire, not as fast as an Indy pit team, but damned fast…5 minutes tops.
I’m male, and have been helped, and given help to both males and females. In the case of male-male help, said help usually consisted of holding the flashlight while the owner did the work. (no cite, but IME car and motorcycle problems are 10X more likely to occur after dark)
A cross style wrench is MUCH faster than the jack-handle style that come with the car, and I carry one that has been lent to males who otherwise didn’t need my help. With practice they can be almost as fast as an air wrench. Another thing is that if the flat is on a trailer, often the car’s wrench won’t fit the trailer lugs, even if they have a spare for the trailer.
I also carry a small 12V compressor, so even if I don’t stay to help, I have them make sure the spare has air in it before I leave.
In one case I changed a tire for a suited male on his way to a job interview.
One thing I’ve noticed over the last 20 yrs: Nowadays some people prefer to sit and wait an hour or more for AAA to show up when I could have them back on the road in half that. Sometimes I swear that people’s brains fall out when they sign up for cell service. You really don’t need a cell phone “in case I have a problem with the car.”
Questions for the OP: I’ve had lots of males stop to help me, no wimminz. How many times have you stopped to help someone change a tire? Would you if you were male?