Some years ago in rural Los Angeles county, I was alone in my car driving along a quiet, curvy road that sees perhaps one car drive by every couple to five minutes. During the middle of the day at an area near a curve in the road I saw a pickup with a service bed pulled off on my the side of the road and one white male in his upper-20s dressed in construction clothes (painter?) stepping into the road from the other side to wave me down. Doors locked, I stopped and cracked my window (farther than I should have) to see what he had to say.
He said a motorcyclist had just crashed and wanted me to get out to check him out. I looked, but saw no motorcyclist (but with the dips in the sandy terrain and sage bushes, there very well could have been). The man emphasized the need for me to "get out" of my vehicle in a suspicious way. It really smelled like a set-up to me. The conversation went something like:
Man: "Hey! A motorcycle just crashed! Can you get out and help me? I think he's hurt!"
Me, not seeing a motorcycle: "I'll go call 911." (no cell phone--this was 1987).
Man: "Someone else already called. Can you get out and look at him?"
Me, as I started driving off: "I'll call 911."
I was unarmed (Kalifornia, after all), but had this happened today while armed and with a cell phone on me, I've often thought of how I would have approached that situation differently.
As it was, I finally got to a phone booth several miles away and phoned it in. They did not claim to have received an earlier report. I told them I wasn't sure if it was legitimate or not. Never heard from them about it, but I did read in the paper a day or two later that a motorcyclist had died from injuries sustained when he crashed off that road that day. So I think it probably was legit after all. And with all the First Aid training I'd received, maybe I could have helped the guy. It still bugs me, but given the situation (primarily me unarmed), I think my actions were the only sensible ones to take.
Assuming you were armed, with or without a cell phone, what would you have done?
He said a motorcyclist had just crashed and wanted me to get out to check him out. I looked, but saw no motorcyclist (but with the dips in the sandy terrain and sage bushes, there very well could have been). The man emphasized the need for me to "get out" of my vehicle in a suspicious way. It really smelled like a set-up to me. The conversation went something like:
Man: "Hey! A motorcycle just crashed! Can you get out and help me? I think he's hurt!"
Me, not seeing a motorcycle: "I'll go call 911." (no cell phone--this was 1987).
Man: "Someone else already called. Can you get out and look at him?"
Me, as I started driving off: "I'll call 911."
I was unarmed (Kalifornia, after all), but had this happened today while armed and with a cell phone on me, I've often thought of how I would have approached that situation differently.
As it was, I finally got to a phone booth several miles away and phoned it in. They did not claim to have received an earlier report. I told them I wasn't sure if it was legitimate or not. Never heard from them about it, but I did read in the paper a day or two later that a motorcyclist had died from injuries sustained when he crashed off that road that day. So I think it probably was legit after all. And with all the First Aid training I'd received, maybe I could have helped the guy. It still bugs me, but given the situation (primarily me unarmed), I think my actions were the only sensible ones to take.
Assuming you were armed, with or without a cell phone, what would you have done?
