Exactly. If it’s someone you’ve met in person, you can see if they set your spidey-sense tingling before you get in a car with them. If you’ve met them through friends or work, you have a sense of their bona-fides. If you’ve just met the person over the Internet, you have no idea what they’re really like.
Like I said, most people are not Bad Guys. But it only takes hearing from one friend who did go on a date with a Bad Guy to make you wary.
Plus it’s more of a sort of “focus” for the evening thing, not that I am explaining that very well. An aimless drive could be a short time or a long time, but if you know you are going to a film or a museum or dinner (not, not necessarily posh dinner, just a pizza place or something casual), then you have some idea of where you are in the evening (and, should it happen that you are not enjoying, it, start preparing a polite way to bring the evening to a close). Heck, sorry to be so basic, but at some point one might just need to use certain facilities, which public entertainment venues tend to have, and cars tend not to have. Am I making any sense yet? Oh, and some of us just don’t enjoy being in cars all that much, although sometimes it’s fun. However, I absolutely agree that having a chance just to chat about anything and everything is terrific and absolutely good and the best way to get to know someone better.
So it’s not that the more nervous and cagey of us think that everyone else is an axe-murder: it’s just differing views, I suppose.
Plus, Roland, you ask if it’s now the case that people - ok, men - are assumed to be axe murderers until proven otherwise, but I suppose it’s not that long ago in history that “pick you up at eight” would tend to include “pick you up at eight, and yes, I know your mother and father will be paying a lot of attention and wanting to know where you’re going and when you will be back”. 
Not in my case, admittedly, but that’s because I stayed antisocial until I went away to study, and that involved a student hall of residence that disapproved of men after midnight. :eek: (Yeah, it was terribly old-fashioned for its time, all right? 
Me not that ancient!
However, this O.P. friend and the young lady in question had a great old time, so date went well, so that’s all good. And that duct-tape thing sounds like a nice idea for evil fun.
Oho, I just glanced again at the thread and managed to misread Burundi’s post here as “someone you’ve met in **prison **…”, which would really add to the fun.
And everyone knows that evil fun is the best fun!
Wait, that didn’t sound creepy, did it?
I’m surprised that nobody’s mentioned the possibility that the guy might have a really cool car. If he’s got a convertible, or a neat old classic car, then ‘driving around’ might be an event unto itself. Maybe that was my generation.