To think DH did nothing wrong here?

[Challas]

On my way to do the school run in the dark I nearly slammed into a little black car that was broken down just around a blind on our very rural 60 mile an hour road. I noticed a woman alone sitting in the car. I called DH and asked him to go at least put cones around the car but also to offer to the woman for him to stay with her (in his car) or come stand on our drive so she didn't get killed sitting in the car. He went up to her and she politely declined (all fine but he was legitimately afraid for her). He did then drive back around the bend and sat there with his hazards on to slow any cars coming down. Eventually the recovery van came for her and all was well until a few hours later we had the police at the door saying this woman reported DH for having made her feel threatened!? He's now said in the future he just won't even offer help if he's in the same position again. The police were fairly aggressive with wanting to know exactly what he said and did so clearly she was very uncomfortable.

The police haven't done anything to your husband here.

they have received a report of presumably intimidating behaviour by a male stranger while the female informant has been in a vulnerable and dangerous position. Nobody can surely expect that this wouldn't be followed up ?
they have received one side of the story in their call from the female.
they have come to your address to get your dh's account of events.
presumably they were satisfied all was in order as they left the address and let your Dh go on with his day.

they investigated and closed the report. As one would rightly expect them to do.

If you are driving a car, you can't afford to be "flustered" in a situation like this!

I totally agree with your other points, and I think this thread is batshit!

She was obviously in the wrong but fucking up in the moment, as she did, is far more understandable than people defending her actions on this thread (someone referred to her car as the woman's "place of safety" on the last page...crazy in the circumstances).

Nobody has taken issue with the police's actions.

Well, never mind, the next post does 😂

Reporting him to the police for making her feel threatened when the man was trying to protect the silly bitch from her own stupidity and prevent other drivers/passengers from being seriously injured/killed was just disgusting!!

The attitude of the police was totally uncalled for!

@Challas I wouldn't blame your husband if he never helps someone again, and that's sad. Years back, I would have also stopped to help anyone but it's got to the point where no-one would be advised to do it, because of the attitudes of the idiots we try to help!

Well I do, if they were as the OP has suggested, "aggressive"! No need for that!

Wow you really are the neverending gift.

Calling her names not acceptable, and reported.

She was perfectly within her rights to call the police. She felt threatened you don't get to tell other women what they feel.

The police obviously took it seriously as they employed resources.

The bile and aggression you are spewing on a woman who found herself in an unfortunate situation is disproportionate, seriously have a head wobble.

And why are you minimising cases where women were raped and murdered?

It's a woman on her own in the middle of nowhere - of course she is going to be anxious about a random man offering help.

Is there any reason you couldn't have approached her?

She was driving in the opposite direction with her kids in the car and it would have been dangerous to stop?

It never fails to amaze me how many people on MN make up their own scenarios in their head that have nothing whatsoever to do with what the OP said happened. So now we get that the female driver was 'attractive' (and youthful as well, no doubt, even though for all we know she was in her 70s) and that her broken-down car, parked on a blind bend with no hazard lights on presenting a risk both to herself and to other drivers, was her 'place of safety'. Not only did the OP's DH offer to sit in her car with her, he asked her to go and sit in his car with him as well, and asking her if she'd like to wait on his and the OP's driveway if she wanted so she'd be off the road and away from other cars coming along is now presented as wanting to take her into his house. It's genuinely mad.

Your husband sounds very kind and thortful. The police were a bit OTT.

I agree with your husband, it isn’t worth the bollocks from women like her. In future don’t ask him to do something like this. Call the police and let them deal with it. And if a crash happens, it happens but at least the relevant authorities were notified and hopefully the driver in question would be prosecuted for causing a dangerous situation (very unlikely).

He did NOT suggest the woman sat in his car!!!

I think your DH was very kind and decent but I can also understand the woman being scared not knowing anything about him. If you had done the same as him her reaction would probably have been completely different. It's a shame that a small selection men have caused women to be justifiably scared, it's just the way the world is. Your husband shouldn't regret it though, it may not just have been the woman who got injured or worse, the person or family who hit her could have been badly hurt too. He did good!

I reported that last night hopefully they will remove it.

Yes she should have had her hazard lights on and been waiting outside the car away from it obviously, but the woman was probably in shock and scared.

She was already feeling vulnerable, then a random man gave her his address and suggested she wait in the dark on his driveway, and presumably walk along this 60pmh road to get there? I can understand why she felt uncomfortable.

OP should have just called the police and reported the hazard in the road so they could come and deal with it instead of phoning DH to do it.

And while the woman was waiting for the police, someone else could have smashed into the back of her. She was putting herself and other road users at grave risk, which far outweighs any discomfort she might have felt. Imagine OP phoned her DH, and he replied that he couldn’t be arsed helping the motorist, and stayed at home. Then, shortly afterwards, another mother driving her kids to school hit the car, resulting in serious injuries and/or deaths. The DH would be ripped apart on here, and you know it.

Calling the police around here for something like that gets you a response time of hours if you're lucky. Calling the police and walking away would have left so many people in danger. Rural police are not plentiful!

Why didn't he just use cones like you suggested, if he had them?

Well @Challas said that the police were very aggressive. I did ask how they behaved after getting all the information but she ignored that. Im guessing that’s because they went away quite happy with it and said there was nothing to worry about, so OP doesn’t want to include that in the sorry of how awful it all was. Because it really wasn’t awful.

I think there is a difference between offering her a space in his car without pressure, or offering to get into her car, which he did not do.

In the man's defence, offering her to sit in his car was his wife's suggestion, not his own. The only thing he did of his own initiative is to park his car around the bend (and so presumably out of sight) and turn his hazard warning lights on. Maybe he shouldn't have done this, but he was hardly hiding in the shadows as he had his warning lights flashing every second.

If OP's thread had been "I had to slam my brakes to avoid hitting a black car behind a blind corner. As I passed saw a woman sat alone in the car, so I called and asked DH to help but he said no. He said he's been on Mumsnet and the woman is an adult who doesn't need a man patronising her. I just heard a story on the radio that a lorry came around the corner, didn't see the black car in time and ran into the back it, killing the sole occupant, a woman. Am I right that DH did nothing wrong here?" I suspect the PPs that criticise OP's DH on this thread would have been just as vocal to criticise him on that one.

Yeah, imagine if the OP's DH didn't do anything and the woman was killed by having a lorry plough into the back of her car on a blind bend, then justified himself by saying 'I didn't want to patronise her or treat her like a helpless little woman who needed a man's help, so I respected her autonomy and left her there alone, as she wanted. Yes, she was killed, and the lorry driver is badly injured and in a coma, but hey, at least a woman got to exercise her agency in the last minutes of her life. WIBU?'

My god, talk about making g things up to suit your agenda. Now your suggesting the DHi is a creep rather than a man who saw a woman in trouble and went to see if he could help.