Here's a story that happened when I was a college student, about 40 years ago.

Some utility workers had dug a hole in a nearby street. At the end of the day, the work wasn't finished, so they put barricades around the hole with flashing lights. About 9 or 10 o'clock that night, a drunk driver plowed through the barricades. His left front wheel had gone into the hole and his car was now resting on its frame. He couldn't drive out.

This happened on a busy street in the middle of a college campus. A crowd of students, mostly male, had gathered around. The driver was much older—not a student. When I arrived, he was asking the students to help push his car out of the hole. They were saying, no, it's impossible.

I went back into my dorm, less than half a block away, and called the police. I described what I had seen, and gave them my name, address, phone number, and the exact location of the accident. Then I went back outside.

When I arrived, the students had pushed him out of the hole after all. The drunk got back in his car and drove away. He drove down the left side of a two-way street until he got to a busy intersection, and then he took a right turn (!) and disappeared.

I asked one of the students who had pushed him out, "What did you do that for?" He answered, "I just wanted to do a good deed. Now maybe he won't get in trouble." (!!!!)

Before the driver got away, I wrote down his license number. (I hadn't done so when I made the phone call.) I stood and waited for the police to arrive. I stood there over half an hour (alone, because the crowd had dispersed—and in cold weather), and they never came! They never contacted me, either, although I had given them complete contact information!

It goes to show what attitudes were like in those days—and might still be, for all I know.