My cold robot side

Today I told a woman and her daughter that I wouldn't give them a ride so they could pick up her son's medication.

I stopped by Home Depot in Woodinville to get some scrubby stuff for our kitchen countertops. The woman followed me to my car (I didn't notice when she started walking after me) and asked me to take her to Albertsons. I had no idea where it was, but she said she knew how to get there and insisted it was too far to walk. Despite the two of them looking non-threatening, I had a small voice in my head saying "this feels weird". Perhaps it's not, but it's the first time this has ever happened to me. I declined, but was determined to check out the story when I got home.

This is the path they would have needed to cover. Per Bing, Google, or any other estimator, it's just over a 30 minute walk for a healthy adult (which she appeared to be). With traffic it'd probably take 10 minutes to make the drive. Assuming they were able to find a ride instantly, they'd save 20 minutes on each leg (assuming that their ride wouldn't wait around while they fill the prescription).

When faced with options, you do the following comparison:
Walking best case scenario: 60minutes.
Walking likely scenario: 70 minutes.
Walking worst case scenario: 80 minutes.
Hitching a ride best case scenario: 30 minutes.
Hitching a ride likely scenario: 60 minutes (assuming it takes 15 minutes to find a ride)
Hitching a ride worst case scenario: Infinity. You may never get picked up.

Is 70 minutes fast enough? Assuming her son's not dying (she'd probably not be in the HD parking lot ... ), it has to be. Perhaps she has other things she wanted to do, but, there's 1 clear goal at the moment. Is the likely scenario hitch hiking much better? no. Can we even count on that likely scenario? not at all. They probably walked to the HD lot and maybe already wasted time doing that (though I have no idea which way they may have come from). Therefore, you take the path that you understand, you make it happen, you take care of yourself. By not doing so, it's likely that she's making the outcome worse.

When something important is on the line, take the option that guarantees success.
When failure is not an option, don't try and optimize in a way that could negatively impact the outcome.