We tell our children not to accept lifts from strangers ...
but sadly this sensible rule of caution prevents many kindly acts.

I was dropping my husband at the bus station one day and we drove past a young lass about 10 years old. She was hobbling along the street towards us on crutches with a plaster cast covering most of one leg. She had a heavy school bag on her shoulders and it looked very much like it was about to rain. After dropping hubby at the bus station I drove back past her, still hobbling her way to school. I stopped, offered her a lift to school, whilst smiling cheerily and doing my best not to look like Myra Hindley.

I could see her poor little face performing a risk assessment. Thankfully 'friendly missus with two wee girls in the back of her car. Looks safe enough' won out over 'Mummy told me not to accept lifts from strangers' and I gave her a lift to school. Kind deed done.

However, it put me greatly in mind of a very sad story. As the new Millennium dawned, myself and an army of IT types spent New Years Eve 1999 straight, sober, well paid and rather bored as the predicted catastrophe failed to materialise. The next day, there was a dreadfully sad story in the paper of a young 18 year old lass from a village near Edinburgh who had wanted to get into town for Hogmanay, but missed her bus. So she walked. She was found the next morning frozen to death in a farmer's field.

The last people to see her were a pair of lads heading into Edinburgh. They stopped their car to offer her a lift, but unfortunately, her personal risk assessment, disorientation from the cold and her own mother's words of warning, made her decline. A fatal mistake.

As my own two daughters grow into women, I will tell them this story. The point being, that the best times of their young lives will depend on sometimes taking a risk and trusting someone. Sadly, the rules designed to keep them safe, may in fact endanger them. I hope when they grow up, they will have the right mix of caution and trust.
(Que?, Thu 16 Feb 2012, 2:58, 1 reply)

Well said!

(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Thu 16 Feb 2012, 16:42, closed)