To have a little less faith in humanity, try to hitchhike

[JBT]

I've picked up one dude. He was walking and only had a few miles to go. Most hitch hikers look like people who would potentially try to kill me. Now that I have a wife and kids I wouldn't do it. But in college I may have.

 

[SSSnail]

Wait, I thought hitchhiking is illegal now?

 

[irishScott]

I've picked up one dude. He was walking and only had a few miles to go. Most hitch hikers look like people who would potentially try to kill me. Now that I have a wife and kids I wouldn't do it. But in college I may have.

I read that back in the day fewer people owned cars, so many more "normal" people hitchhiked. Nowadays anyone who doesn't live in a major city owns or at least has access to a car by necessity, so the only people hitchhiking are poor bums no one would want to give a ride to or people trying to live out some romantic 1960s road-trip fantasy.

 

[Muse]

Hitchhiking is no more dangerous today than yesterday. People are just more distrustful. It's the same way with violent crime against children. It happens less today than it did 50 years ago, yet most think it's worse today.

How do know this? My impression is that it's more prevalent. When I grew up kids played in the street, were (I believe) a lot less supervised than they are nowadays. There wasn't the sense that there were boogiemen around every corner like you have now. There were less nut cases around, less people plotting to shoot people en mass, carjack you, snatch your children/babies. It was easier to hitchhike in the 1960's than decades later, way way easier, at least here in Northern California. There are counter culture types around but now it isn't a mass movement kind of thing, it's more cellular, there types of counter cultural people, not a counter culture per se.

most hitchhikers out now are severely mentally ill or addiction riddled homeless people. You don't want either sitting next to you in a confined space. Occasionally you may run into some college dropout drifter who is wanting to experience america

See, this is the problem. It didn't used to be that way. There is a freeway over pass I come to when exiting the freeway where there's always a homeless person with a cardboard sign.They aren't hitchhiking, they are looking for a handout of money. I don't look at them. You did not see this 50 years ago. There were fresh young faces on hitchhikers, it was a different country.

 

[skyking]

In the 70's and 80's there was a lot of college types hitchhiking. I never had any weirdness or issues back then. If somebody had a massive pack plus other gear I did not pick them up, those were the stinky drifters and you just naturally avoided them.

 

[CZroe]

Hitchhiking is no more dangerous today than yesterday. People are just more distrustful. It's the same way with violent crime against children. It happens less today than it did 50 years ago, yet most think it's worse today.

It happens less today only because people are more distrustful and pickup fewer hitchhikers these days. It can still be more prevalent and happen less.

FAIL point is FAIL.

 

[Zee]

isnt this shit illegal?

 

[Rakehellion]

People don't hitchhike here, they beg for a subway swipe.

 

[Auric]

When I was 17 and in college, on two separate occasions I got rides from people who turned out to be gay dudes trying to bang me. Now I'm convinced it's the motorists who are the creepy rapists.

I wonder how often creepy rapist and/or murderer hitchers meet creepy rapist and/or murderer motorists? Oh the hilarity which must ensue!

They should have asked for gas or grass.

Or simply pointed to the bumper sticker.

I'm not certain of that. In the last 50 years our mental health programs have all but collapsed. Now severely mentally unstable people are put back on the street, with no way to maintain their medications, within a few days of being stabilized.

Many ended up in prison.