Cash spills on the highway: What would you do?

Associated Press + More

By DAVID DISHNEAU, Associated Press







"It was in the traffic lanes and on the shoulders and just generally kind of like a snow globe of cash," she said. "Some people had fists full of money, fists full of dollars, and other people were just still trying to collect."


"It was really unclear what was going on and I like to stay away from that type of thing," she said.


Maryland State Police urged people to return the money to the agency's barracks in Rockville, with no questions asked and no charges filed. As of Friday afternoon, no one had.

So what would you do?


"Of course I would," she said. "If the armored car had been in an accident of something, I'd make sure the drivers were OK and I'd call 911. But I'd put as much money in my pockets (as I could) and run."

But what if her kids were there? "I absolutely would not take any money," she answered again without hesitation. "I wouldn't want them to get the message that grabbing money that is not yours is the right thing to do."


"I'd start picking it up and I'd call police right away," he said.

As a former lawyer and prosecutor, he knows that it's stealing and he could land in serious trouble. Even if he was alone and could get away undetected, he said he still wouldn't do it: "It would be about how I would feel about myself later. Bad karma would get me in the end."


"The money is insured," he said while waiting downtown for a bus. "They've been taking money from me, so it's just karma."



"Watch Xavier," he said. "No question."


"I don't want to get hit by some cars and I don't want to cause traffic," he said while working at a coffee shop in Tustin.

He did see one possibility: "What kind of car are we driving? A convertible? Because then maybe my hand or my butterfly net would just stick up and grab some as I drive on by, but otherwise I probably wouldn't stop," he said.

Anthony Janni, 36, a bartender in Hagerstown, said he understands why people would stop for "money that seems to just fall into their hands," but he probably wouldn't have done so.

"The highway's not necessarily the place to do something like that," Janni said. "It's not something worth causing an accident over."


"I'm not going to take a chance of endangering my life or others for money," he said.

If he was alone? "Oh yeah! If there is money out there. We can all use money."


Gates believes it's much harder economically now for the middle class than in his parents' day because "everything costs more."



The denomination of the bills might make a difference.

"If it was hundred-dollar bills, it would be worth it," she said, laughing. "But if was just (single) dollars, no."

She's a single mother with three sons and a grandson. Her youngest son, 17, is still at home. She finds it "harder all the time to make ends meet."

Maybe the economy makes people more likely to go chase cash on a highway, she speculated, recalling her own single mother: "My mother still had to struggle, but I think the economy was better when we were growing up than it is now."


