Safety lessons

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I grew up in a small farming community with a population of about 20,000. When I was 16 my best friend, whom I’ll call Jane, and I were taking advanced lifesaving swimming class during the summer at night. We had just finished a class and were taking another friend home, Jane was driving.

After dropping the friend at home, we pulled away from her house and noticed another car with two men following us, it was rather obvious the way this car had pulled in behind us, wheels screaming. Well Jane and I panicked and the chase was on. We went for about a mile when Jane missed a green light and being the good citizen she is, Jane stopped for the red light. Well a guy got out of the car, opened the back door to Jane’s car and said “what is in the box”, he checked the box which was empty. He then closed the door and got back in his car. The light changed green, Jane and I sped off and the car behind us did a U-turn and no longer followed us.

Well we drove for awhile to put some distance between us and the men and finally parked in a well-lit area and sat in our now locked car and discussed what had happened. The friend we had given a ride had some well let’s just call them challenged relatives, you know the ones that sell and do drugs, commit burglary, plus other crimes that more heinous than that (our friend was a nice girl who just happened to be born into the wrong family). What we figured was these guys might have been undercover narcs, but they scared 10 years growth off of us.

What we learned.

  1. When in danger, don’t stop for red light.
  2. Always lock car doors.

I will NOT own a car without electric door locks. I figure I was allowed a safety lesson that although frightening, no harm was done, I should take it. I do know that to this day, Jane still locks her car door at all times.

I would enjoy hearing other stories of how safety lessons were learned.

2

When I was in college I was walking from the science building toward one of the dorms and as I reached the parking lot a girl asked me if I’d walk across with her, as it was a little dark and she was nervous. As we walked across she spoke of being afraid of the weirdos who might be there. After we got across, I asked her “How are you so sure I wasn’t one of those weirdos? You don’t know me.” maybe she’ll think about going up to strange guys - call a friend or something, or realize she should not be telling people she doesn’t know she’s so afraid.