Have you ever given or taken a ride from a stranger?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

Taken:

Got in a fight with my dad on a camping trip near Parker Dam. Decided in my infinite wisdom to walk to the nearest town (in this case, Parker, AZ) and stay in a motel there. I think I covered about 12 miles before a pizza delivery person who drove past me the opposite direction stopped and offered a ride coming back the same direction. I spent a night at a motel there then took a bus to Las Vegas, then another bus back home to Medford, OR.

Given:

Finished a late-night call around midnight on a Sunday. Stopped at a Taco Bell drive-thru to buy a soda. There was a kid crying by the order sign who asked if I could loan him my cellphone. From his half of the call I surmised he called his mom asking for a ride home and she said no. I drove him to his home about 15 miles away. He said he had walked to his current location from home that day and boy did he smell like it.

22

When I was younger, with my foreign student uni roommate, we hitchhiked to Dawson City, Yukon, from Southern Ontario. It was a brilliant adventure. As two young women we found it easy to get rides, as a rule. Even grandparents would pick us up! Wild landscapes, wild animals, wild times!

23

When I was a kid, somewhere around 7 or 8 years old, a friend of the family who was about 17 or 18 years old picked up a hitchhiker, and the hitchhiker stabbed him. After that, I always thought it was a bad idea to pick up hitchhikers.

West Virginia has roughly four square feet of flat space in the entire state. Everything else is on a hill. When WVU ran out of usable space in the downtown area, they built a second campus a few miles away where they managed to eke out a couple more square feet of flat space. The also built this fancy completely automated system to shuttle students from one campus to the other. Google WVU PRT if you want more details (PRT = Personal Rapid Transit). The system really isn’t important here other than how long it takes to get from one campus to the other if you use it.

For what it’s worth though, this is what a PRT car looks like. They are completely automated. There’s no driver. There are seats for 4 people in the back, 4 people in the front, and poles so that roughly 8 people can stand up in the middle. When it’s busy, you can pack a few more people into it, but it beeps and refuses to move if you overload it.

Anyway, the system is nice and worked pretty well back when I went to college, but from where I lived, it was a 5 minute walk to the PRT station, then you had to wait in line for a PRT car, then another 5 minute walk from the PRT station downtown to the buildings where my classes were.

A lot of students who lived near me would hitchhike over University Ave since that was about a 3 minute car ride that put me out right in front of the buildings where I needed to go, as opposed to 15 to 20 minutes or so total (including walking and waiting) to use the PRT. I was a bit reluctant to hitchhike at first, but tried it once when I was running late and was picked up by a nice professor. After that, I kept hitching. Sometimes I’d be picked up by a professor or by someone who worked at the university, but most of the time I’d be picked up by another student. Never had a bad experience. Everyone I rode with was friendly. Surprised me.

I still always have it in the back of my mind though that someone I knew got stabbed from picking up a hitchhiker, so other than my college days, I have never hitched a ride or picked up a hitchhiker. I have stopped numerous times to help people who have broken down, but I don’t pick up hitchhikers.

24

Stopping to help people “who have broken down” can be every bit as dangerous as picking up a hitchhiker.

25

Couple dozen times each, in the 70s and 80s. I always picked up hitchhikers unless I picked up bad feelings about someone. Hitched a lot myself. It was a normal thing that people did.

26

When I was in college in the '80s, there was a “ride board” at the student union, for people who were either (a) looking for a ride somewhere (typically to go home for the weekend), or (b) looking for riders to split the cost of gas on such a trip. Ostensibly, all of the people who used the board were fellow students, but there would have been no way to be sure of that.

I probably took a half-dozen rides home for the weekend from people I’d never met before from that board; when I was in grad school, and had a car, I similarly gave rides to a bunch of people from that same board.

27

I pick up everything. Several times I’ve taken hitchers home for the night. Never had a scary moment.

In college, I hitched the thousand mile trip home for holidays many times. Never a scary moment.

Too many wonderful stories, great friends, to relate individually.

Hysterical tabloid stories do not scare me.

28

Never a complete stranger, but I’ve given and taken rides from people I barely knew. However, my parents and sister were in a car accident and were driven to the hospital by strangers. (It wasn’t an emergency enough for an ambulance, and who wants to pay for that?

I do remember as a kid my family did help people who had car trouble, but it was more along the lines of trying to fix the problem–giving them a jump, bringing gasoline, etc. And we’ve received help of that kind.

Still, the only rides I remember being given to us in that situation were from people we at least kinda knew–neighbors, friends, coworkers, or relatives. Though, living in a small-ish town, we did know a fairly decent portion of the population.

29

Yeah, just did yesterday actually. I live in a gated community off the highway right outside Giza, and there are many people working at properties across the compound who do not have any means of transportation to go from the main gate of the community to a specific property or back. So whenever someone gestures that they need a ride, I give them a ride.

30

After a delay in Chicago led me to miss my connecting flight from Atlanta to Tallahassee, a fellow passenger who was also headed that way split the cost of a rental car with me to drive back instead, allowing me to get to work on time.

31

In the late 70s, I was without a car for a few months. My workplace was about 2 miles down the main street I lived on and 2 blocks over. I hitched every morning just down the main street. Only once was it weird. Some guy put his hand on my leg and I said “let me out right here”. He did. I always walked home since time was not of the essence on that end.

When I was 19, I traveled with my 2 best friends from Memphis to Aspen Colorado. One of my friends had bought an old mail truck, the kind with the steering wheel on the right side. We fixed it up as a camper. We picked up lots of hitchhikers on that trip. They were always excited to drive the truck and we appreciated the breaks. (The truck wouldn’t go over 35 mph so it was a long trip.) We never had any problems with them.

32

I drove trucks for few years in the 1980s and several times I gave rides to hitchhikers, never had the slightest drama with any of them

33

Hey, everyone needs a day off now and then. A cooling off period I think they are called.

First time I saw this I had no idea what was going on, my friend just told me we were going to go to the Pentagon and we did this. It was like a whole different world. I never used anything like this in NYC.

I hitchhiked a lot in my early teens but once I bought my own car at 15 I don’t think I ever hitched again. I gave a ride to a young couple just a couple of weeks ago. They were filling up a gas can while I was fueling up and I talked to the woman she said they were on up the interstate about 2 or 3 miles. It was about 10 degrees out, really windy, blowing snow and they were masked up so I gave them a ride to their car and waited until they got going, followed them to gas station turnoff and waved goodbye.

34

When my son was 8 or 9 he had a day off from school. I took a day off from work and the two of us headed to a section of the upper Allegheny to kayak. My plan was to stop at an outfitter and pay for a ride up river. I’d done this many times before, but on that weekday he wasn’t in.

I told my son to sit tight, I’d arrange us a ride. I walked across the road to a little bar, walked in, and announced to all present that I’d pay $20 to whoever could drive with us up river, then return my Jeep to the bar. There were plenty of guys willing, but they were all heading back to work after finishing their lunches. The one guy who said he could do it couldn’t actually stand up without holding onto the bar.

When I told my son what I’d attempted he was flabbergasted. Luckily, the outfitter guy returned from his lunch and all went well.

35

I never did till I thru-hiked the AT. My first time was trying to hitching a ride to Hiawasee, GA when I wanted a night off trail in a real bed. I couldn’t get a ride that direction on this road that was not well travelled, so I started trying in either direction and got a ride to Hellen GA, which was not as much of a AT trail town but more of a tourist town. But that opened the door for me. From that point on it was pretty easy and became a normal part of life. Even at one point trying to get back to a point in a hurry I ran and basically flagged down a driver to stop, jumped in the back of his truck while I asked him to drive me a mile down the road. That was the most ‘aggressive’ hitch I ever did, but it was time critical to find someone to reunite their pack to them.

From that I have both given and accepted rides. Usually it has been very pleasant and I look for those who need such help.

36

The reason the Pentagon is the usual destination is because there is a Metro station there and a large bus hub. When I was in college, I slugged to get to campus and back, most every day.

37

Many years ago living in Omaha I went out with some friends after work. By the time we left the restaurant about 8 inches of snow had fallen. We were in a friends 4x4 going down the highway and spotted a car on the shoulder with the flashers on. We pulled over to see if we could help. The driver was an Asian lady who was nearly in tears because it was her first time trying to drive in snow. She didn’t live far away so I jumped into her car and drove her home while my friends followed.

About 10 years ago I was with a group of friends driving to Le Mans in an old American Winnebago. As we were driving along there was a loud bang and it died. We coasted to a stop outside a farmhouse. After trying to fix it for a while the one of us with a bit of French plucked up the courage to knock on the door of the farmhouse. Long story short, they invited us in (all 6 of us) gave us some home made calvados, and drove us to the next town to a hotel and showed us where the auto parts shop was.

38

Once each. Both times in the late 80s.

Walking home from work on a beautiful day, a truck driver stopped and asked if I’d like a lift. I said yes. Then thought that had been stupid. It’s not like I needed a ride, I was only a mile or two from home. But it was fine, he drove me home, and we chatted a bit en route.

Another time, driving a night, I came across a teenage boy who has driven his car into an enormous “puddle”, and it had stalled. It was pouring rain. He was soaking wet. I offered him a ride home, which he gratefully accepted. I never for a moment regretted that one. It wouldn’t come up today because of cellphones, but I’d do the equivalent again.

39

I’ve never given a ride, but I can think of a couple times when I accepted a ride as a kid.

When I was 6 or 7, my brother and I walked to the local library (really not very far away). My brother left me to walk home by myself and I got lost. I freaked out, picked a house at random, knocked on the door, and told the lady who opened it that I was lost and I got a ride home. So much for never taking rides from strangers.

When I was 16 or 17, I was driving to a church meeting when my parents’ car threw a rod outside of Earl Grey, SK. I freaked out and flagged down the next car that I saw. The guy calmed me down, took me to his house for tea and a snack, towed my car to a garage for free, and dropped me off at my meeting! Man, did I ever appreciate that.

40

Oh yeah, I forgot about ride boards.

That was considered normal enough that I could tell my (very protective) parents that was how I was getting home for vacation. I never dared tell them about hitchhiking, or picking up hitchers; not even years later.