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I would never pick up a hitch-hiker now, that's for sure.
I think it went extinct because of horror stories by the media.
I remember, back about 1980, seeing a TV documentary about
a college aged guy that picked up 2 bad dudes in Wyoming and they
killed him and abandoned his car somewhere in the Nevada desert.
Too bad, as it seemed a OK thing to do back in the 70s.
Anyone remember CCR's hit song from 1971 "Sweet Hitch-Hiker",
loved that tune, their last big hit.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gigano Raidome
What car do you have that not only get 50mpg, but runs on "several different sources of free fuels" since 1976. Do share, sir.
a "Stealth (VW diesel) Rabbit" (of Course)... I have 34 VW diesels, they were all QUITE cheap (many were free). They will go 300 - 500k miles without much trouble or expense (YMMV). I will have some that will get to 1 million miles, same as my Dodge cummins (they run on free 'alternative' fuels too)
Pretty simple. It wasn't all that safe even in the 60's and 70's, but people did used to do it. And yes, you often wound up having a nice ride and conversation with somebody. For the most part young people do it, and those pleasant experiences "prove" to them that it's perfectly safe. But sometimes things can go wrong, as I know by my own extremely close call with a creep. It wound up with me running into a convenience store, not knowing exactly where I was, looking for help. And I have to say OP, even though you might not have been dangerous, your little fantasy might have made it a less pleasant ride for a woman than it could have been!
Anyway, the world either is, or seems to be less safe now. Not only are people afraid to hitchhike, but more people are afraid to pick them up (and most people were afraid to pick up hitchhikers, even in the past). Also, as someone mentioned, more people have cars now. Many young people in the 70's lived without a lot of material things, and didn't much care. Different times.
I used to hitchhike and pick up hitchhikers in the 60s/70s, and never had a bad experience. In the early 60s, the Army Base near us had a lighted turnout with a sign on the main road where Soldiers without transportation could wait to hitch a ride into town. Imagine something like that today!
I picked up a hitchhiker a year ago. She was very unfriendly and had no interest in small talk. When I let her out at a gas station, she asked me for a dollar to get something to eat, and didn't even say thanks. She may have been the exception to the rule, but I decided times have changed and she was the last hitchhiker I would bother to pick up.
a "Stealth (VW diesel) Rabbit" (of Course)... I have 34 VW diesels, they were all QUITE cheap (many were free). They will go 300 - 500k miles without much trouble or expense (YMMV). I will have some that will get to 1 million miles, same as my Dodge cummins (they run on free 'alternative' fuels too)
Really? What 'alternative' fuels are we talkin' about?
I used to hitchhike quite a bit in the early to mid seventies. Drivers would actually stop and pick you up. I still recall the nice conversations I had with these people. Times change however. More and more newsstories came out of the violence and risk to both hitchhiker and driver. Everyone expects the worse now and perhaps with some justification.
I would add that in the 60s and 70s hitch hiking was a more acceptable form of getting around. Now most people I see hitchhiking look dirty or somewhat dubious.
When both my grandparents were alive, my grandfather told me a rather grisly story about a guy he knew, who, unknowingly picked up a sledgehammer-wielding hitchhiker. The driver looked in his rear-view mirror, saw that the guy he'd picked up was about to hit him over the head, but the driver put his hand on the back of his head to protect it, and the sledgehammer-wielding hitchhiker hit his hand, permanently mashing it out of shape. A pretty horrible story, imho.
My grandfather also said that up until the mid-1960's, they used to pick up hitchhikers and even treat them to a meal, or just coffee, but no longer did that after awhile. By the time the mid-1960's rolled around, the situation had already started to worsen.
I sincerely doubt that it's gotten much, if any better. I'd never take chances with being in a car with or picking up a total stranger, especially nowadays. It's too risky.
The decline of society in general. Even as crime rates DROP, we've been brainwashed into thinking the world is getting more dangerous.
It's got nothing to do with society. it has to do with the fact that if and when one either gets into a car with a complete stranger, or picks up a complete stranger, s/he is totally at the mercy of that person, with little or no control over what may happen. Inotherwords, the options of fleeing, calling for help, or even physically defending oneself if need be if the situation should turn nasty and/or violent, are extremely slim to none while in a car with a total stranger. While most people are perfectly normal and honest, that risk is still there.
I'd say the end of hitchhiking correlated with the rise of the serial killer phenomenon. The phenomenon was close to non-existent prior to Ted Bundy in the late 70's, and then a bunch of them popped up.
I lived in Seattle in the 90's and used to sometimes see hippie-looking kids hitching on the on-ramps to I-5 in the U-District. Usually w/ a sign saying 'Portland.' There was a whole Seattle hippie resurgence in the early 90's. They even listened to music from the 60's & 70's, stuff like Jethro Tull and Pink Floyd.
Here in the Boston area, back in the early 1970's, a whole slue of young women who ranged in age from their late teens through their early 20's, disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again while hitchhiking to school or to their jobs. Their bodies later turned up, in very distant places, either in wooded areas or by the roadside(s). Not worth taking a chance, even though such gruesome murders are the exception. A driver doesn't have to be a murderer to be dangerous or just plain careless or crazy. There are a lot of them out there. They may not be the majority, but they still present a risk, because one never knows if they'll get picked up by, or pick up such a person..
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