Drastic measures on the road

Having a car break down alongside the road may require drastic measures to get help – especially when a guy drives.
As a woman driver, I have had to open the trunk, haul out the jack and – sometimes even the tire – before a knight in shining armor stops and offers to wrench off the lug nuts, fight the spare tire into place and send me on my way.
Guys do not enjoy the same privilege.
Not here, not in Sydney, Australia last week where, according to the Associated Press, a driver stranded on a remote stretch of Australian highway tried to get help by playing dead in the middle of the road.
A woman spotted the man. “She drove around the body — which didn’t move at all — and got to the nearest phone,” said Doug Backhouse, a detective with the Western Australia state police.
Police arrived with an ambulance and found the man alive and well, but with car troubles.
The man didn’t think anyone would stop if he were standing up, Backhouse said.
Police told the man it was “a stupid thing to do,” but didn’t charge him with any offense.
From experience, I’m sure desperation forced his desperate solution.
My husband, daughter and I left an out-of-state wedding in plenty of time to get home before bedtime when the flap of a flat tire forced us off to the side of an Interstate highway which was under construction. Cars, trucks, vans and RVs zoomed around us, barely noticing our dilemma as they wove between temporary concrete walls.
We stepped out and down to a steeply sloping desert of dry grass.
My knight in shiny armor hauled out the jack, tossed back the carpet and began cranking to lower the spare tire out of its under the car cubby hole to the ground.
The tire dropped, but not quite far enough to release it from the cable. He slid under the van for a better look, sweeping up dirt with his shirt. For the next half hour he struggled beside and under the van to release the tire grumbling at his lack of tools to pry it out.
The sun began fading. Not even a friendly police car stopped to ask if he needed any help.
It was time for the women to pitch in and help.
“Get in the car, we’ll get some help,” we told him.
He protested, looked at the fading sun and reluctantly yielded to sit in the mini-van.
“Now keep your head down so you can’t be seen,” we mandated.
My perky 23 year-old and I walked to the open door at the back of the van.
A few minutes and dozens of cars passed.
“We have to be trying to change the tire,” I said.
She picked up the jack lever, bent down, looked at the hanging spare and pretended to fiddle with it.
Very soon, a take-charge kind of guy, driving an awesome pick-up truck pulled in behind us and offered his help.
My husband slid out of the van and explained his dilemma.
Together the two men using the stranger’s tools, got down and dirty, pried the tire out and changed it.
Still wedding clean, my daughter and I thanked the man profusely, leaned back in our seats and nodded off while our knight in shining armor resumed control of the situation and drove us safely home.
(Joan Hershberger is a reporter at the News-Times.)


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