Imagine blowing out a tire while you’re driving. Would you pull over and change the tire yourself or call for help?

In this story, one man is in that exact situation, and he decides to try to change the tire himself. When that doesn’t work, things get interesting.

Let’s read all about it.

I called Roadside Assistance Today

I blew-out a tire while driving this afternoon. Pulled off the busy road to a side street to assess the damage and start work on replacing the flat with the spare from the trunk.

It turned out that the lug-wrench provided in this particular car was absolutely tiny, and thus provided very little leverage. Try as I might, I only managed to loosen 1 of the 5 lug nuts holding the tire on.

No problem, I thought, as I have roadside assistance coverage on my auto insurance.

A short call later, my insurance has dispatched a local service provider and I receive a text stating that “Darrell” from the local provider will be arriving at my location by 2:34pm. That’s less than a half hour wait, so I’m pretty happy.

Someone finally arrived to help.

At 2:33pm a van approaches, the driver waves at me and pulls over.

Driver immediately hops out with a tool kit in-hand, we exchange brief pleasantries and I explain my problem.

Driver smiles and tells me the same thing happened to him last month and says not to worry about it. He takes out a proper wrench, I hand him the jack/spare and he has my car back in operation in about 6 minutes flat.

It was at this point when the conversation got a bit muddled.

He wanted to make sure the guy got paid.

I ask him if he needs anything from me (like a signature) to ensure he gets paid.

He responds that no money is necessary.

I try to clarify my question, and explain that I have roadside assistance on my policy, and that my insurer got him dispatched to me and that I think they will pay his employer for the service call.

His response?

It was quite unexpected!

“Oh, no one dispatched me. I was just driving by and thought that you could use some help.”

“So you’re not Darrell?”

“Nope. Brian”

I can’t believe that I handed this guy my jack and just watched him crank up my car while lying on the frozen pavement.

Brian seems like a great guy!

I don’t even remember how many times I apologized. Guy wouldn’t even let me hand him some cash. He just left, in full cheer, and told me to pay it forward.

Aftermath: I waited another 10 minutes for Darrell, but gave up and left after finding his employer’s phone number and cancelling the help request.

My insurer had been sending me automated texts all day, along the lines of: “Has your service provider arrived yet? Reply ‘Y’ if yes, ‘N’ if no.”; “Has your service been completed yet?”; and “How likely are you to recommend this service provider from 1 to 10?”

I can’t figure out how to respond in such a way that no one gets in trouble or over/under paid.

Anyway, thanks Brian.

That was such a nice thing for Brian to do! I wonder whatever happened to Darrell though.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

It really was a great story!

Here’s a suggestion about how to respond to the texts.

He’s really lucky Brian stopped to help.

Apparently, kindness like this is pretty common.

This is such an uplifting story!

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.