I’ve picked up several hitchhikers. I always try to stop if I see them. The most recent was last summer. I was driving from Belgium to Luxembourg. There was a couple on the onramp holding a sign that said LUX. Hell, that is exactly where I was headed, so why not pick them up!? They really lucked out. I took them the whole way there and dropped them off in the middle of downtown where they planned to play music on the street for cash. They had a guitar and something else with them. I have a huge trunk in my 300C, so it wasn’t a problem.
And since I was on a road trip myself, I had plenty of drinks and snacks to offer.
The Doors’ “Riders on the Storm” (1971) at least contributed.
But, I think the risk is greatly exaggerated. The handful of folks I’ve given rides to have been harmless (as far as I could tell) and more than worth it for entertainment value.
They’re more scared of you than you are of them.
I hitched and we picked up lots of other hitchhikers in the late70’s/early 80’s before the tabloid paranoia got me about the dangers.
Most memorable was a guy, maybe early 30’s who we picked up on a country road about 9.00 am. He jumped in the back, and we IMMEDIATELY regretted our decision to stop for him…he stank to high heavens 
His story was that he’d been living on the road for quite a few months now sleeping in ditches and just three nights before his faithful old heeler dog had died. He’d been cuddling up to the dog in the meantime to keep himself warm. :eek:
By the time he got in our car, he smelled like HE’D been dead for three days…thank Og he only wanted to get to the next town ('bout 30km away). We chucked him out of the car as soon as we could!
In those days I knew nothing about the concept of mental illness. Nowadays I’d recognise such a person as perhaps having some ‘issues’ and might direct them to a service provider who may be able to help them. Back then, all I was concerned about was GETTING HIM THE FUCK OUTTA THE CAR AND GETTING TO A SHOP TO BUY SOME DEODORISER TO RID THE STENCH.
Poor bastard, I wonder whatever happened to him.
Not in the last 20+ years.
Many years ago, Mrs. FtG and I were leaving the airport and spotted a young woman hitchhiking near the exit. I wasn’t going to stop but I saw a guy who was clearly sleazy slowing down to check her out, so I stopped. Turned out she was attending a conference at the university I worked at and it was on our way so we gave her a lift. How she was going to survive the conference when she didn’t even have car fare to take her the relatively short distance to the place was beyond me.
Yep. Make that 30 years. I used to pick up hitchhikers, until I noticed they mostly were raving nuts or stunk far too much. I also used to hitchhike myself, partly for economy, and partly because I thought it was cool and environmentally friendly.
Now I would not even consider it.
Plenty, but now they don’t seem to be very common… in fact now when you do se em 95% of the time they’re holding trade plates up.
(for non UK readers, trade plates = trade numberplates = temporary licscence plates for vehicles being moved around the country, they drive them from A to B then often hitch hike back)
I can’t remember when I last saw one, but I used to pick them up whenever I did.
A few years ago, I was driving along the road, and there on the corner was a teeny little old lady with her thumb out! She was like 85, in a purple poly pantsuit! :eek: I figured I’d better not let her stand there and get picked up by goodness knows who. She wanted a ride down to the Burger King a mile or so away–usually she liked to walk there and back, but she’d gotten started late and knew she wouldn’t have time to get back before dark unless she got a ride.
It was pretty surreal.
Never picked up a hitchhiker before, but I hitchhiked once, by accident. My sister and I were sitting at a bus stop in South Korea a few months ago and we were picked up by a random driver. :eek: It sounds sketchier than it was. We weren’t actually trying to hitchhike, but we had been sitting there for half an hour with no bus, and the dude had a cast on his arm so we figured we could probably take him. He just wanted to practice his English and let us off at the tourist sight we were bound for. I probably wouldn’t have agreed if I had been alone.
I’ve put alot of miles on my thumb over the years, and have returned the favor most of the time. I still rely on the ‘spidey senses’ an won’t offer a ride because I trust them. The one time my intuition went off was driving down I-95 in 1990. There was a woman hitching close to the ramp. Normally I’ll pick them up, and if they are hookers, let them off at the next exit… I’m not interested, thanks. This one gave me a strange feeling, so I didn’t even stop. Months later they caught Eileen Wurnos, and when I saw the picture, I think it was her :eek:(shiver).
later, Tom.
I lived in the England for a couple of years, and a year of that was in the Lakes District, which attracts a lot of tourists. I picked up hitchhikers quite frequently, usually young backpacker types who needed a ride to the nearest youth hostel.
I’ve also picked up a few in Australia. I’ve never done it in the US, because i didn’t have a car for much of my time in Baltimore, and because you don’t see hitchhikers on the freeways here in SoCal.
Oh, I forgot one. I was driving through San Francisco, also in the '70s. There was a guy in gold lame pants, a pink top and long curley hair, franticly waving and jumping up and down, like he had some great emergency. I stopped, he looked in, and said. “Oh, I don’t do girls, sorry.” :eek: 
I used to hitch-hike, sort of. Not really. But my senior year of college, I lived in a dorm off-campus, and didn’t own a car. The university shuttle service was spotty, so sometimes the quickest way to get to campus was to just wait in the parking lot for someone to leave, then try to run over and hitch a ride. It was always someone from my dorm, but not always someone I actually knew. Ride was only about ten minutes, though.
I picked up a guy with a broken bicycle once. Normally I’m too chicken to do stuff like that, so I’m not sure why I did it. Took him to his home, and never saw him again.
Never!
Yes,
But in an area that it seemed that hitchhiking was considered a substitute for a local bus/taxi service. I’ve also given rides to people who were staying at the same hostel as me and going the same direction the next day.
Once when I was little, we were on a cross country type drive and my mother picked up two guys and drove them for an hour or two. After talking some, it turned out that they were 1 or 2 degrees of separation from my mom, still that freaked me out. I don’t see myself doing that.
Sounds like a rousing way to get stabbed!
I have a couple of times. Once (when I was in high school–probably pretty stupid of me) because it was raining and the poor guy was getting soaked. I wasn’t going anywhere near where he wanted to go, but I also wasn’t in a hurry, so I just took him all the way to his destination so he wouldn’t get wet. Another time (and the only time I know of that my mother did this) I was a kid and my mom picked up a homeless woman who was hitchhiking. The car smelled like rancid sweat and pee for a couple of hours after that one.
Then there was that one time I barely survived hitchhiking…