Over the last 10 years, I think she has called them like 4 times for roadside assistance (3 flats, 1 dead battery).
Jumper cables - $20
Teach wife to change tire - $free (or is that "priceless"?)
I am with Frankies Girl on this - I am not getting out of the car and changing a flat in speeding traffic on a highway! I am generally pretty self-sufficient but I will gladly pay for someone else to handle this for me ;-)
Ditto
I'm not trolling here... this is a real question: How many flats have you actually had on busy highways? I've had one in 34 driving years. I just carefully drove on that flat until I was in a safe area. Yes, a risk of damaging wheel/tire -- but weighed against getting smacked I found it acceptable risk. (Tire/wheel were undamaged, btw.)
I'm not saying "OMG, DON'T PAY FOR IT!" ... just ... saying to weigh the expenses of both options here and how often you have used it.
Once, in a certain number of years of driving. :-)
I had, not a flat, but a true blowout at speed on a busy interstate in traffic. Believe me, controlling the spin and getting the car to the shoulder were much more exciting than changing the tire on that shoulder, but I did both myself.
I've never carried any roadside assistance. I've needed a tow I think twice in a situation other than someone else hitting me in an accident (thus their insurance was on the hook for the tow eventually). One cost me $80 (broken timing belt, so the tow was the least of my worries), and for the other, my husband came and loaded the car on our trailer and took it home.
I keep belts and a spare tire in the car, and that fixes most problems. I'm also not strong enough to break loose machined-on lug nuts by hand (petite woman), but a foot on the "down" side and a pull on the "up" side will do it.
A dead battery will not cause a car to die if it's already running, and alternators don't die that fast in my experience - I have had a number of them die over the years, and the charge light comes on, but you've got 20-30 miles on the battery. Usually, though, there's an intermittent stage where the charge light is on sometimes; this is the proper time to troubleshoot and fix.
In cases of a dead battery in a parked car, jumper cables generally work, but for those who are hesitant to ask for a jump, one of these will start the car, or for that matter put air in a tire, for half the cost of AAA for a year:
http://www.amazon.com/Stanley-J5C09-Starter-Built-Compressor/dp/B002X6VXL4/ref=lp_318336011_1_1/183-3836447-8138013?s=automotive&ie=UTF8&qid=1422015886&sr=1-1