Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) announced that he would not drop out of the New York City mayoral race this week. On Tuesday, however, he dropped a new video on Threads with no commentary, showing him jumping a man's car. Cuomo is shown with a young man of color whose car appears to have broken down...
I work a weird night shift schedule, so I find myself doing a lot of grocery shopping and such later at night, because that’s when I’m awake (and also the stores are less crowded)
One time I was heading back to my car, it was dark, probably around 10pm, the lot was mostly empty. A Hispanic guy with a heavy accent was flagging me down from a couple rows over, asking if I had jumper cables, so I drove my car over and gave him a jump. Shared some brief chitchat over whether we thought it was his battery or his alternator, shook hands, and we went on our separate ways.
Another time, I was walking into the store, and stopped in the fire lane was a car, with a handful of younger black people trying to get it started with a jump starter. It looked like they knew more or less what they were doing, so I went in and did my grocery shopping. They were still there when I came out, so it was pretty clear that the power pack they had didn’t quite have enough juice to do the trick, so I grabbed my cables and headed over to lend a hand. Again, got their car started, shot the shit with them a bit, and went about my night.
Neither one was a big deal, I’d hope that anyone would do the same for me.
But when I think about those situations, empty parking lots, late at night, people of color, I think about how many people probably would have just ignored them and not lent a hand.
Guess I should have been filming, I could have a political career.
But the real moral of the story is if you have a car, go buy some jumper cables. They’re not that expensive, they last basically forever, and sooner or later you or someone else is going to need a jump and you’ll be ready to save the day. When I bought my first car at 18, my first stop on my way home from the dealership was to buy a set of jumper cables and some other basic emergency supplies to throw in my trunk. I probably find myself using them at least a couple times a year. Still have those same cables going on a decade later. Probably one of the best purchases I’ve ever made.
I’m going to be “that guy” and rain on your parade a bit. So my apologies for that.
A lot of modern cars recommend against being used as a jump point. Jumping another car can be bad for the electronics in your vehicle. In particular, most (all?) EVs very strongly recommend against being used to jump other peoples cars.
Jumper cables were great in the 70’s when you had virtually no electronics in cars, and before lithium batteries were a reality. Today you’re better off having a good lithium jump pack — they’re small, portable, are often USB rechargeable, and can pack one hell of a punch. Many tow truck drivers have switched to using jump packs — they’re portable, can tell you more information on the state of the battery via built-in electronic meters, and have a lot of other useful features built in. And it’s way cheaper to buy a new jump pack if something goes wrong than it is to fix your vehicles electronics.
I’ve been carrying jump packs for a few decades now, and like you I’ve jumped a bunch of strangers vehicles over the years. These days I’m rocking a NOCO GBX45 — with 1250A of boosting power @ 12V, USB-C PD rechargeable, automatic polarity warning circuitry, a built-in flashlight, and can be used to recharge other USB-C devices — all in a package that fits in one hand and weighs just under 1Kg. Way better IMO than jumper cables — it’s effectively safer to use for the user and the vehicle, you don’t have to get close enough to use it — and if you own one yourself you don’t need to rely on the kindness of strangers to get you out of a pickle.
You’re a good, kind, knowledgeable soul. Please keep being you.
Absolute necessity. Those jump packs can be nice too if you treat them right, mine has always worked so far when needed but most of the credit for that should probably go to my recurring “battery check” calendar reminder every few months. Nice to be able to get yourself out of a bad situation when nobody else is around or have one fewer problem to solve if there’s tricky terrain or tight quarters getting in the way of hooking up cables.
I once watching someone’s truck engine burst into flame in the parking lot of the grocery store.
The driver had popped the hood to look at the smoke coming out and had just started running away when it burst into flames.
I grabbed my fire extinguisher from my car and put out the engine fire, and then the lady came back and started yelling at me for getting fire extinguisher dust all over her truck.
She started talking about lawsuits by like the third sentence so I just took my empty fire extinguisher and drove to a different grocery store. I’ve been hesitant to help random people with their cars ever since. I always want to, but then I remember that crazy lady and decide it might not be worth my time or money if I have to use something of mine to bail someone else out.
That sucks, some people react in shitty ways in a crisis but I’m glad your impulse was to act and not just be a bystander. There’s a furious storm of chemistry going on that can trick this weird thinking meat into lashing out in irrational ways.
I’ve known some drivers who were completely oblivious to the state of their vehicles: they’d keep on trucking until the smoke pouring out of the hood got too thick to see and then stick their head out the window for the remainder of the journey. Only slight exaggeration. The old Simpsons trick of fixing a “Check Engine” indicator with a strip of electrical tape on the display turns out to be less than ideal, who could’ve guessed?
In any event, you spent that extinguisher for some valuable experience not just on the technical “Pull, Aim, Squeeze, Sweep” side of things but also the human component. I hope you will continue to help those in need since it sounds like you’re the type of person who feels compelled to respond rather than sit back and film a clip for the 'gram or whatever.
Jump boxes are super useful. My problem is I don’t want mine to bake in a hot car every day so I keep it inside on the charger, then never remember to bring it when I leave and end up using cables anyway if someone needs help