People are good - tell us your 'faith in humanity bolstered' story

[RedRider]

I get a puncture this evening near charing cross and sit myself down on the Oscar Wilde memorial sculpture to fix it. Repair sorted, I reply to a text message, put my gloves back on and head off down the road.
A mile or two later I realise I no longer have my phone - oh no, i've never even bothered to back it up to the cloud - so I retrace my steps figuring I might have left it with Oscar when I put me gloves on. Alas, it isn't there.
Slightly despondent I turn home. Once there I phone my mobile more in hope than expectation but a shop assistant answers. 'Yeah,some guy selling the Big Issue found it and brought it in. Why don't you drop by the shop tomorrow and pick it up.'
I'm not totally surprised by this turn of events but even so it's good to be reminded that people are generally cool. So come on...what's your story?

 

[jefmcg]

Shared before

https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/three-cheers-for-anonymous-cabbie.157458/

My partner is working at two sites, one pretty close to home (12km) so he's experimenting with cycle commuting once a week. Yesterday he left work with a satchel containing wallet, keys, notebook - oh - and Macbook bungeed to the rear rack. When he got home after cycling through Shepherd's Bush, Chiswick and Brentford, it was gone

We retraced his steps, but of course found nothing. Chiswick police station was closed, Brentford police station no longer exists, so we went home. Insurance line is 8-6, so there was nothing we could do. He'd cancelled his credit card outside the police station, and when we got home he changed the passwords he could so if the person who had it managed somehow to access his browser or iTunes they wouldn't be able to spend any money.

We didn't really expect to find it on the road. The first person to see it would pick it up, now we were at the mercy of whether it was an honest or dishonest person. Plus it had our keys and his drivers license so if we were going to have the change the locks.

Subject says it all. About 10 minutes after we get home, there is a knock on the door. Policeman with satchel, completely intact and in good condition. A cabbie had found it, called the police and met them at Chiswick Police station. Yay cabbie! Yay police!

Partner has learned his lesson. He'll find a better way of carrying his luggage. Panniers aren't an option as it's a 20" wheeled folder. I told him the simple trick of throwing strap around seat post. Actually, he is lucky he didn't have an accident. It was a bungee net with 6 or 8 hooks, only one still attached. It could have easily caught in his spokes.

 

[Globalti]

Most people in the world are honest. In the export business I have found my Muslim customers generally much more trustworthy than Christians or Hindus. At street level you will find most ordinary people honest unless you are in a tourist hotspot which has a high number of cheats, thieves and opportunists.

 

[pplpilot]

Slight twist to this. I was parking the car in Coventry this weekend and there was a chap with no change for the machine so I offerd to pay his parking for him only £1.50 it took me ages to convince him I was after nothing and there was no catch I was just trying to do a nice thing. He declined and left his car with no ticket and went off in search of change. it's a shame people are suspicious of people doing nice things.

 

[Hill Wimp]

[QUOTE 4579437, member: 45"]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-38141319[/QUOTE]
I love this story. I know the company obviously win out of this too with all the publicity, but still.

 

[Spinney]

Shared before:

Today I rode (very slowly!) into the back of a car and fell off.

Most important thing first - the bike is fine ! But I've sprained my thumb and at the moment (given that typing this is both uncomfortable and awkward) I doubt I'll be doing anything significant on the bike for the rest of this month.

Queue of traffic just starting up when some dickhead pulls onto the road a few cars ahead. The car ahead of me stopped faster than I did. I have to say the people in the car were brilliant, real stars! They weren't bothered at all about the scratch to the boot, checked I was OK. I was feeling a little dizzy (shock - my head didn't hit anything) so they stuck my bike in the back of their car and he drove me the 8 miles home while she did the shopping. And it was completely my fault.

 

[swee'pea99]

Once upon a time...

...a friend and I were riding in the Peloponnese mountains in Greece, and stayed overnight at a very cheap pension in a tiny village way up in the hills, so basic that it was unplumbed: your washing water came from a little metal tank that hung on the wall with a beer-keg type tap on the front.

Anyway, next morning we set off again and after maybe ten miles rode into a little village in the back of beyond, and as we rode up the main (only) street, people started coming out and flagging us down. They spoke no English and we had only a few words of Greek, but they got us to understand that we should wait, so we did. And about five minutes later a small car pulled up and a young man got out and proved to be the one man from miles around who could speak - albeit little and very halting - English. Anyway he started trying to tell us something, with the help of a lot of gestures, and I suddenly clutched at my sides and said to my friend: 'The money belt!' Sure enough. I'd left the belt, containing not only all our money and travellers cheques but passports, tickets, everything, back at the pension.

As the doctor - for that's who he was - drove us back to the pension, he said that the owner, not knowing which direction we'd gone in, had rung every village within a ten mile radius to tell them to look out for and stop a pair of young English numpties on bicycles.

We got to the pension, the man handed over the money belt, many smiles and thank yous, then the doctor drove us back to the village where our bikes were leaning against the wall where we'd left them (unlocked, needless to say - we'd had a brief debate, because if they'd gone we really were screwed, but had agreed that there's no way we're using a lock in front of these people), then we climbed on and rode away, good-byed with big smiles and waves from all the villagers.

 

[User482]

Some years ago, my wife and I were trekking in the Nepalese Himalaya. We were caught up in a snowstorm (several people were killed in an avalanche) which meant we were stuck in a remote village, and we ran out of cash, having only taken enough for our planned trip. In the end, a group decided to club together and charter a helicopter to get us out, but as you might imagine this was eye-wateringly expensive. One of the group - a complete stranger - lent us £250 so we could get on the flight. Yes, I did pay him back...

 

[postman]

There is a story in the media today,about an American woman,who has shot her mouth off at some coffee shop workers.It seems this is not the first time she has done it.One customer has set up a Giving page for one of the staff,who wants to go to college.$31,000 has been raised so far.It appears the woman has gone into hiding.The recording on YouTube is not nice.

 

[Electric_Andy]

Slight twist to this. I was parking the car in Coventry this weekend and there was a chap with no change for the machine so I offerd to pay his parking for him only £1.50 it took me ages to convince him I was after nothing and there was no catch I was just trying to do a nice thing. He declined and left his car with no ticket and went off in search of change. it's a shame people are suspicious of people doing nice things.

that is sad