AIBU for giving a distressed woman a lift to safety?

Another version is where someone apparently vulnerable (sole female) bangs on your door late at night and asks for help. If you open the door you risk having an accomplice force their way in. The sensible thing is to offer to call the police or appropriate emergency services for them. Or tell them you have done so. If the unknown caller suddenly disappears you know it was a scam.

Personally I wouldn't have let her in my car but I would have called a number for her so someone coild pick her up or 999 or called a taxi.

This isn't Johannesburg, capital of hijacking. Nothing to worry about or lose sleep over!

I think the time of day would have made me stop. 5am is surely unlikely to be a scam - not many cars out at that time, wouldn’t scammers wait till later (or do later at night). Plus you had a gut feeling - I wouldn’t underestimate that.

That’s not to say you’d do the same again - you risk assess each situation you come across surely?

Someone gave me a lift only recently when my car broke down on a country road. Thank god for her kindness.

True. But I think most car jackings happen because they want the car and there's not a criminal in the country who would want to go out of their way to steal my car.

Did anything happen to you? Are you still here to post about it?

this is your answer

the problem is that if it is a carjacking, they don't know that your phone is old and your wallet not worth it. My car is old but my phone is not.

the scam risk is a woman who stops the car and a man/men hiding nearby

its not the car, its your phone, wallet, jewellery and so on.

I have picked up several strangers off the side of the road, locally and when travelling up and down the country. All of them male. Locally a bloke with trade plates and another time a teenager, both walking on a really dangerous bit of road.
Picked up three students on the M1, heading back to Sheffield after a festival and dropped them back to their digs, its a boring journey back to Leeds from London and was glad of the company, I was a similar age to them.
I also once rescued a very drunk man who was lying in the middle of the road, but had company for that one

Well, you obviously weren't gullible in this instance, because you seemingly read the situation correctly.

You did take a risk, but it's the sort I'd probably take (hard for anyone who wasn't there to evaluate).

I wouldn't have taken that risk, I would call The Police and ask them to come out and do a welfare check though.

A man dressed as a lady kidnapped someone in my area so I wouldn't even feel safer if the person looked female.

As she was a woman it was much less risky than helping a man

So would I, although I suppose you’d have to be desperate to try to nick a ten year old Ford Fiesta.

I don’t think it would occur to me if I saw a woman on her own that I was more at risk than she was.

Its a difficult one.

My DB did it and it was a robbery but he also says that he’d always stop if a women looked like she was in trouble and would take the risk again if needed (although would call the police too).

I would also hope someone would do it for me and my DDs.

Nuts imo. You should’ve phoned the police with her location.

I have a friend, a big muscly bloke, who was caught out by this and attacked. He was working at the time and what he did went against our staff safety rules. He said it had never occured to him that men could be attacked too. You did a good thing but perhaps not in the safest way.

How many women do I know who’ve ever been distressed and vulnerable in a public place (clue: a lot!)

How many people do I know who have been carjacked in the U.K.? (0)

So yes; I’d have gone with my gut and helped.

With the one caveat that where you were in the country probably affects the risk assessment.

Dh is a helper everytime time so far he has been pulled into a world of chaos.

In all fairness though, when I was in this situation, I could rule out a carjacking pretty quickly as my car was old and decidedly unglamorous

And robbing would have got them nowhere as my phone is equally old and I was only carrying a small amount of cash.

It's about weighing up all the facts and risks. I tried calling the police and it was going to take them 20 mins to get to us! I drove us to a shop and then the shop kindly locked us in and looked after her (and me) till the police could get there

I have done this, came across a very distressed girl, the same age as my son, on my dog walk one dark winters morning, had been abandoned by her friends and she was lost, I walked her back to mine to get the car and drove her the 10 mins home. I was more concerned she’d got into a strangers car (mine) and told her she must not do it again.

This
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It was a risk, but I would have done the same and did something similar last year.

I would. I hate to think if my daughter was ever in that position. I would be forever greatful to anyone that helped.