People are decent

[keith99]

Every day we hear about the bad things. I thought I share a trivial bit of good.

I'm not a tiny safe looking guy, perhaps not too scary now that I'm older. But still no fragile or helpless individual.

I went out for a bicycle ride on Wednesday and about 6 or 7 miles in my rear tire went flat. Since I had just fixed a flat before the ride and had checked for anything in the tire then I figured it was doubtful I could find what I had missed at home out on the road. So I called for help and waited.

For the Los Angeles Locals I was where the bikepath in the Sepulveda Flood Control Basin passes the Army reserve Armory 100 feet or so West of Woodley. The back entrance to the park. Within 5 minutes a guy in a car stopped to be sure I was OK. Before my ride got there 2 others did also. It was a weekday and the only cyclist to pass after I stopped also stopped to be sure I was OK.

Perhaps people are not as bad as the news makes us seem.

Oh and when I got home my luck had turned, I easily found the little piece of steel belt in the tire. Even so I felt it more than saw it, but I got it out and a short test ride on Thursday did not reveal any additional pieces.

 

[MWood]

As a general rule, most people are good decent people. But there are a few that have no self respect or respect for others. But then, a few of them are some what ok.

 

[PropheticTimes]

The media networks are just puppets in the fear-mongering ploy of those who are foaming at the mouth for us to turn on each other. I personally refuse to buy into the hate propaganda.

I agree with MWood that people are generally decent folks and will do a kindness if the opportunity arises.

 

[keith99]

I was thinking about this a bit and now want to point out a few details that are all but unknowable to anyone who has not biked that path.

It is probably the worst situation possible for having someone stop. Not in the scary deadly sense of I might die here, just in the sense if I stay here, exactly here, no one will ever stop. It is a back entrance/exist that is very lightly used, but it is on a very major street where traffic coming off a signal is past you before all but those with the best of reactions could stop.

Or put differently it is busy enough that everyone will think someone else will stop, but the few who do see you in time to stop do not realize they are few.

Decades ago I broke down a couple of times in areas that are sort of the wilderness in the middle of the city. (The top of Mullholand Hwy just East of the San Diego Freeway for example). There it was initially disturbing, not so far out of civilization to be scary, but enough to be a potential major bother. That was enough that it was 5-10 minutes before the first car, but where most cars would stop.

Just wanted to point out that often people don't get help when there are too many people there, everyone thinks someone else will help. When there is almost no one then almost everyone will help. Please remember that next time you see someone broken down with plenty of others there to help.

 

[Ada Lovelace]

I've encountered random kindness and decency so many times in Los Angeles, as well as in other major cities often falsely perceived as having indifferent, callous people. Just yesterday in Weho a stranger bought me a coffee with no expectations, and people offer up compliments out of the blue just to be nice all the time. Anytime I've ever had any sort of problem people have stopped to offer sincere help. They've also helped me when I hadn't even realized I needed it. Like the time in Paris when we were running to make the train and I hadn't realized that my backpack wasn't fully closed and my passport pouch (which also had money in it) had fallen out. Someone found it, figured out that I had likely boarded the train on that track, and told a station guard. The conductor came on the speaker to let it be known that my passport had been found, and the conductor of the next train was going to bring it and drop it off at the first station stop for me. That was just one of several examples of helpfulness from strangers while traveling. When I was sick last year in Italy, people were just extraordinarily nice.

I've had positive experiences in LA, too. A few years ago I was biking on Benedict Canyon with my dog in my basket when I got run off the road by paparazzi chasing someone. (I knew it was the paparazzi because they were in a convertible with photographers standing in the backseat and were driving like lunatics.) Four cars immediately pulled over to help me, and a lady who lived on the street rushed out. Another person went and got the license plate of the paparazzi and called the police. They helped me to find my phone which had flown off me. They called my mom for me since my screen was broken. This gardner put my bike in his truck and followed us home because my bike couldn't fit into her car. That was just one example. When I had my surfing accident it was like the whole beach rushed to help.

 

[grandvizier1006]

I haven't heard much about people from California being "mean", but I really hope the papparazzi thing isn't a regular occurrence. I would not want to go to work to find that the streets were clogged because a celebrity had a wardrobe malfunction

 

[Thewonderer]

I think there is a lot more good in the world than bad, it's just a pity the media portrays the world and it's population in such a negative way.

 

[briocht]

I think there is a lot more good in the world than bad, it's just a pity the media portrays the world and it's population in such a negative way.

Yes. We need to hear some positivity for a change...