"I know I'm a big, scary, Black man..."

[areias]

Agreed-I never roll the window down for anyone, nor do I give money to anyone. Under normal circumstances, I may listen to what the person has to say, and give a response-usually directions to somewhere. I have given a cigarette to someone once (I know what that's like!) and I threw an unopened bottle of water towards someone standing by the off ramp by my house, but I would never physically get out of my car for someone. The only time I ever somewhat did was to someone who I saw blow a tire, and then watched him get out and look very upset-I asked him if he needed anything, and he looked very relieved after he used my cell phone. Nowadays I never go ANYWHERE without my cell phone, and I have a car charger, just in case of anything. The technology is there-even if you have to buy a prepaid one for emergencies, its always a good idea to have one.

I think we had a thread on this before, but I don't give to homeless people either. They make more an hour than I do! And I had my own house and everything...I've watched them take the pot that they are collecting money in and pocket it, and put the pot back with just a few coins left in it. There was one guy my friend stopped to talk to in St. Pete...he sang us a song, looked like Hank Jr. My friend threw him some money. Right after she gave him money, he reached around <to his leather briefcase behind him> and pulled out a joint and a beer. Yeah bud, you really need money.

Don't forget-it's not always men. A lot of times it can be women too.

[Logan]

On Christmas Day, I drove my daughter to meet her dad. It was about an hour's drive from my home. On my way back, around 1:30 pm or so, the interstate was backed up. When I arrived at the scene that caused the backup, I pulled over onto the left median, as no one else had stopped and there was a car sitting in the middle of the highway and no law enforcement there, no nothing.....all I could think was that this was Christmas Day and here is a wrecked car with 3 human beings inside (that's what I could see) and not one car out of hundreds had even stopped to see if they were ok.

I did not approach the car, as so many cars were passing on either side of it. But I could detect that there were 3 people inside. I kept yelling, "are you ok?", to no avail. No one stopped. Finally, one car pulled over and asked if I needed help and I explained the situation (that I was not involved in the accident, but that I was concerned for the people in the car). The guy driving pulled over, but he told me that he felt it was a "fishy" situation, with 3 males in the car and no one saying anything. Right about that time, an ambulance came towards us in the emergency lane, and the guy who had stopped drove off. One of the paramedics asked me if I was ok, and I told him I certainly was, but I was worried about the people in the vehicle. He assured me that they would handle it and that I could move on. I did.

When I got home, I was in tears. I told my husband, Scott, that it just broke my heart that on Christmas Day, not one soul could stop to make sure those people were ok, other than me. It could have been drunk driving, drugs, etc. Who knows? I didn't do anything good in that situation, but I certainly wanted to.

But, given the same situation as described in the original post, here, I could not/would not have lowered my window, either. Its sort of a sad statement, isn't it????

Logan