To stop or to drive past, this is the question that has plagued me since I first received my drivers’ license five years ago. Like many drivers, I have encountered my share of stranded motorists on the road and the question as to what to do becomes both an ethical issue and personal safety dilemma. A few years ago I encountered this very situation while driving through the back roads of Kansas while on a misguided trip to Frisco. It was winter and the snow was thick, yet manageable. I was driving down a county highway when I saw up ahead a pickup truck in the ditch. The nose end was sticking straight into the ditch while the back end was still on the road. The truck was an old Ford F-150, which I knew from personal, yet unfortunate, experiences was a rear wheal drive. The front end of the truck was pointed downward into the ditch-line as to pick the back two drive tires off of the ground. The old man driving was stomping on the gas pedal while not even realizing his rear tires were barely touching the road. Using my moderate amount of car knowledge and a freshman physics class at Whitewater I knew that if I jumped in the bed of the man’s truck his tires would grip the road and he would be good to go. I pulled over, nodded at the man with a smile, and jumped into the bed. I hopped out as he switched gears from reverse to first and he drove off, to cold to roll the window down, giving me the standard small town two finger salute. I never spoke a word to the man, and I would bet all the food packed into my trunk that the old man I just helped thought I was just a boy from town until he saw my license plate in his rear view mirror. This last winter while driving back to Wisconsin from Chicago a similar situation occurred. While driving on the interstate through the suburbs I saw a small Ford Fiesta stuck on the side of the road with a flat tire. I had no where to go and, growing up around cars, was well prepared to change a tire, especially on a car I could most likely pick up with a few buddies. No one else was on the road and it appeared as if no one had cared to stop…I didn’t either.
This has happened countless times throughout my life. Sometimes I stop, sometimes I don’t. I don’t know if I am scared or big city people or just more comfortable around small town folks, but that seems to be the trend. Or maybe in this age of cell phones and GPS I subliminally believe all people from a city to be instantly connected to AAA while people from the country would have to write a letter home to get some gas. I luckily have yet to need assistance on the side of the road, but if I do, I hope my Mercury Sable station wagon looks enough both big city and small town to sway some helpful motorist to stop.