Can one call the police if you are broke and stranded in the middle of the night?

Do you have a cellphone? You should be able to get an SOS call.

If not, look for any human around, in bars and similar, and ask for help.

I don’t think you can call the police if you’re stranded, nor do I think you should be able to. You could call a friend, though. :)

If you felt you were in danger you could. However, just phoning the police because you broke down and think men who might stop to help you will hit on you, or spent all your money, no. I think they would take a very dim view of that @RedDeerGuy1. You’d need to be able to show very clearly you had reason to feel unsafe.

@Earthbound_Misfit Maybe the person could call the AMA. Road side assistance.

Of course you can. Their jobs is to “protect and serve.” You just have to be able to have access to a phone, or perhaps send someone on to call for you.

@Earthbound_Misfit A woman, stranded alone, at night (or any time, really,) could be in danger.

Yes, for sure @RedDeerGuy1.

@Dutchess_III, if you really feel you are at risk, of course you can call the police. If it’s late at night in a remote area, but I still think they’d look dimly on you doing that without some real reason. And as @RedDeerGuy1 suggested, you could call the road side assist people.

Our police departments are already over burdened without women calling them when they break down. What would you want the police to do for you? They’re not going to change your tyre or fix your car. The most they’d do is take you to the nearest police station and if you’ve got a phone, you could probably call a cab to pick you up.

Yes they will change a tire or get some gas for you. Here they will. The thing is, if you have access to a phone you have a lot of options. If you don’t, all you can do is wait for a cop to happen by, hopefully before a bad guy does.

But I agree. If you have the option of using a phone, then of course you wouldn’t call the police first. You’d call a friend or family member.

It’s not exactly the same as calling 911 after a bad windstorm and asking them to pick up branches in your yard!

@RedDeerGuy1 You referenced my question in the details. These things happened in the 70’s along empty stretches of highway, so phoning someone wasn’t an option. Actually, I started walking away from one, to get to a gas station I knew was up the road a mile or two. I couldn’t see it. But then a car load of guys happened by, and they went and got gas for me. In that one, a cop was prepared to lend a hand too.

Don’t know. If you fill up a pool with dry ice, can you swim without getting wet?

There is a really big difference between 911 and the non-emergency police number.

If you didn’t feel threatened go ahead and call the non-emergency number. They have a good idea of the workload and can send someone if they feel it is warranted. And if they can’t send someone they should be able to point you in the right direction.

10 years before cell phones were a thing we were driving from Las Vegas to Redlands. There is a little mountain range west of Vegas. And while we were going up it our transmission died. About ten minutes later a cop drove by. He put out some flares and called someone to tow us back into to town. He waited until the tow truck arrived. And there was a element of public safety involved. It is a busy highway and a car on the shoulder could cause some problem when you have people driving by at 75MPH.

They really are there to help. Make sure to say it is not an emergency. I called once because I had locked my keys in my running truck while in my driveway and my tools were inside. A local officer came in about 10 minutes and opened the door in less than a minute!
But I live in “Mayberry” so that might not fly in other places.

I had a car issue once, a long time ago and the cop pulled up and took at look under the hood for me “damsel in distress.”

My mom locked my sister in the car when my sister was a baby and the cops came within ten minutes and unlocked the door for her. I know that’s more urgent than being broke and stranded. I’m betting if I called the cops and told them I was broke and stranded, they’d at least give me a ride somewhere, even if back to the station house, or get me a tow truck and I could work it out with the tow company. Tow company might tow it to a yard where the car is kept stored until you come up with cash to pay for the tow.

Can one call the cops if broke and stranded in the middle of the night?
Hard to say exactly because I used to work at a police station in Canada as a guard and it wasn’t uncommon for the police to bring people in that were just out on the side of the highway when it was really cold.
They would sleep in the cell overnight, but one time I awoke to banging on my front door in the middle of the night out in the country and I had my wife and baby in the house.
It was 2 people drunk or on drugs and they wanted to get in to “use the phone” I guess?
They kept getting louder and pounding harder on the door.
I wasn’t gonna let drugged up people in the house at night with my baby asleep down the hall so I called the cops.
The dispatcher got mad and told me that the police aren’t a taxi service.
Then the cops called back a few minutes later and told me to open the door and see what they want.
I got pissed off and told them not to worry about it, but if I get into a confrontation with these people and kill them with my hammer I want it on record that I called you guys first and you couldn’t be bothered.
Then the 2 drunks took off and that was that.
I kinda lost faith in police protection a little bit after that night.

@johnpowell Did you wave at the tallest thermometer in the world in Baker? I took a couple of pictures, ate some dessert at the Mad Greek restaurant and moved on toward Pasadena.

@SensitiveChris that really sucks. One time, after I was divorced, a girl came banging on my door in the middle of the night. I slept on the couch in the living room then, and the kids slept on the floor (I had turned all the other rooms in the house into daycare.)
I let this girl in. She was intoxicated, said her boyfriend was trying to kill her.’
I called the police. When they arrived they scolded me for letting her in. It could have been a trick they said.
I said, “Well, I can’t even figure out why the chose my house. The car isn’t even here.” (My ex had it for the weekend.) “As far as they knew no one was home.”
The cop said, “I want you to think about that.”
I got chills at that point.
They took her away and that was the last of that.

@Dutchess_III I guess it just depends on the cop you get when you call or the dispatcher.
I knew they were supposed to respond and I was shocked that they seemed like they didn’t care.
I’m glad your police responded for you.

No