An incident on my way home from work this afternoon got me thinking.
I walk about two miles from my office to my apartment. Today, I was about a block from home when I saw a man at the bus stop. He was probably about 70 and had a white cane.
As I was walking past, he asked me for help. He couldn't read the schedule (obviously) and had been waiting for a long time because another bus driver had given him wrong directions. Our transit authority has a system that you can text for the next bus at a particular stop, but it's not very useful if you can't read the stop number and can't see the keys on your phone to text.
I admit I hesitated: he was bigger than I am (not difficult) and I thought about Mickey. I decided to stop because it was broad daylight, we were on a busy road, he didn't have a vehicle, and the whole blind thing. I helped him out and waited with him to make sure he got on his bus. All was well.
However, as I finished walking home, I considered that Mickey might have stopped to give someone directions. Maybe a driver waved her over, or shouted a request for directions. I hate to say it, but girls, especially, are taught to be polite and sometimes it's hard to say no or just walk away, especially to older men. Maybe she thought someone was lost in an unfamiliar city in the middle of the night and legitimately in need of help. Has this hypothesis been discussed at any length?
Also, it pretty much stinks that criminals have made it so that nice people have to stop and think before they help someone in need.