Would You Stop a Bicycle Thief?

[Gokul43201]

The only risk is misinterpreting the situation and feeling like a fool for calling the police.

Couple of years ago, I saw a very distraught lady crying quite hysterically that her baby was locked in a building that she couldn't get inside of. This was a university building and it was a Saturday - you could not open the doors unless you belonged to that department and had a key, but neither she nor I did. After trying to talk to her and finding her mostly incoherent and somewhat abusive (she was yelling at me for not being able to open locked doors) but also very possibly high, I called the cops. Within the next 5 minutes there were maybe 4 police cars there (city PD + university PD). After attempting to talk to her they too decided it was prudent to try and get in the building as soon as possible. Nothing came from their search - turned out the lady was just going through a nasty trip.

Did I feel like a fool? Not a bit. Should I have?

 

[Newai]

And, presumably, people enjoying a leisurely afternoon in the park aren't particularly pressed with urgent timelines.

But it is a consideration for some situations. Imagine you were driving to work and a woman was lying injured in the road. Stopping to help her would make you late for work.

Woman left injured in busy road

I guess people should at least be commended for swerving around her even when they had somewhere important to go. Kind of reminds me ambulances trying to make it through morning rush hour traffic. A lot of people cut their time so close they can't afford to lose their left turn arrow just because an ambulance is coming through the intersection.

Time is pretty important to some people. (On the other hand, stories like this make me think humanity might be doomed.)

We were talking about making a phone call to the police to report a bike theft. It's a specific situation that you're broadening into examples that have nothing to do with what we were arguing about.