You make it sound sinister like you’re expecting to be mugged, but I’ve called 911 on behalf of others by being the first to come across their roadside accident 2 different times in my life, and the first one wouldn’t have been able to call themselves due to injuries. Not having a phone would have meant leaving the scenes, driving to the next exit and finding a gas station or house, explaining there was an accident and pleading to use the phone, drawing out their time sitting injured on the roadside by several minutes before emergency services were even notified.

I’ve also been the first to report tree limbs blocking roads and a water main that burst to non-emergency lines, again expediting services to fix them and reducing inconvenience overall.

I’ve never felt like this was some conditioning of paranoia, only that I was enabled to help in ways that I wasn’t able to 20 years ago.