Driving with my two children this afternoon to do some shopping over a notoriously busy, fast and thus quite dangerous main road in an East Midlands city.
Speed limit is 60 dropping to 50 over a bridge.
Two cars ahead, a car has obviously had some sort of bump as it half lifts into the air and bumps around before coming to a stop.
Another car slows, I stop as I can see a lady on her own, around 60, looking very shaken. Other car sees I've stopped and goes.
I'm nervous to stop here as cars and lorries go hurtling past, it's narrow and two kids in car.
However, I can't leave the lady on her own, so I wait until I get a clear spot and dash over to see if she's ok.
She's shaken, got no-one she can call on, not sure if she has breakdown cover and is dithering, in shock.
I run back to my car and decide to call police. I dial 101, explain situation very clearly, saying exactly where we are on this notoriously dangerous road, lady listens then says 'we don't usually come out for this sort of thing' so I accept this as I'm a bit in shock too.
I dash back to lady, get all her details and drive 2 mins down the road where I call green flag for her.
Later, I call her to see if she's ok, I was worried.
She was fine.
She tells me though, that a van driver pulled up behind her, called 999 and the police came immediately, cordoned off the road and waited until green flag had fixed her car.
So why ignore my request for help?
Is there any point to 101?
Did I do the wrong thing or was the police response initially poor?
Gosh that's long, just think I needed to get it all out, sorry!