Team-BHP - India comes home in a Maruti: Giving lifts to strangers on the highway

Quote:

Originally Posted by ajmat (Post 882171)

I think you have gone far enough with one girl from london to chennai!

My Chennai girl only needed a lift from St Thomas Mount to Mylapore! Not that I had a car here when we met.

And my English stunner I actually picked up from pure gentlemanly motives: standing by the roadside she looked about 12, and I thought she was at risk, hitching there, so I did the "responsible grown-up" thing. Turned out she was nearer twenty. Anyway, that was years ago; in these days that UK has become a country paranoid about paedophiles and terrorists, one might not pick up such a girl in case she claimed that you did something.

It's a shame, isn't it --- but it is a very imperfect world and there is stuff to be afraid of.

I offer lifts while on my bike, but not during the nights or odd-hours. Usually, they happen to be school kids who are walking till their home, or school.. else it would be someone from the S/W profession, and i do judge them carefully before i make up my mind.

While in the car, i never offer lifts to any strangers.

On my bike on known city roads I usually offer lifts.
It all depends on my mood and what I feel about the person.

Never offered lifts to people standing at junctions and a litle distance from a bus stop. They always want a lift and I hate that type.

Once I gave a lift to 5 kids for a short distance of a km. Corporation school kids and with so many of them it was great fun as the one in the front was doing all the navigation.

Sometimes if I see an old man I would offer a lift on my own.
It so happened that when driving down from the Adyar telephone exchange towards Besant Nagar (Chennai) I spotted an old man walking. I rode up slow and asked him if he would like a lift. He put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Son, at my age if I can walk, I would like to walk".

I never really had any strong opinion on drug users. Till I offered a lift to an old man to the TTK rehab center. The pain in his voice as he told me of his only son a hardcore drug user. I still feel it.

During the month of Ramzan I work from fajr (5:30 AM) to Zohar (1:30 PM).
When I am driving to office. I sometimes offer a lift to the guys waiting at the bus stand who are trying to hitch a ride in the indicabs. Sometimes the suprise when I say its free is worth it.

Gave a lift to a woman once.
She got down from an auto and forgot her purse in it. We chased the auto and got back her purse.

But please note this is only and only on known roads and I never take diversions into the unknown.