The last time I remember doing this was in 2010. My girlfriend and I were seeing some historic sites in rural Nebraska and we saw an old man in overalls trudging by the side of the road. Assuming that he was a farmer who had a mechanical breakdown (it isn’t uncommon for Nebraska farmers to keep working into their 80s), we pulled over to offer help. Unbidden, he hopped in the backseat and just asked us to take him to the next town, which we did. He asked to be let out at a nondescript place and bid us farewell.
I assume that he was walking to the nearest bar, but who knows? It seems like a pretty everyday thing for him.
I typically drive around in a two seater with both seats occupied, so I’m not sure I’ve ever picked one up.
I have however stopped at the side of the road to render assistance on multiple occasions including motorcycle accidents, car accidents and breakdowns.
It depends a little on your terms. I’ve stopped many times to offer assistance and/or rides to people dealing with breakdowns or other emergencies. Were these people hitchhikers? To my (perhaps overly pedantic view), to be a hitchhiker, you need to start the journey on foot with the intended goal of catching a ride from some friendly soul. By this standard, I don’t think I’ve ever picked up a hitchhiker. I have provided rides to those in need though. Most recently, just last week when I offered a ride to a trucker that had just purchased a replacement brake hose for his truck and needed a lift back to it.
I only did it once, a little over twenty years ago. I was in a rural area, and had both my kids in the car (they would’ve been younger than ten). It had been drilled into me all my life not to ever stop for a hitchhiker, but I saw this truck pulled over on the side of the road with a guy looking at it and a woman trying to flag me down. On impulse, I pulled over and the lady asked for a ride to the nearest gas station, so I agreed. After a couple minutes, I twigged to the fact that she was drunk as a skunk. She was kind of hyper, but friendly, and kept assuring me that I was doing a favor for a very important fellow (the guy we’d left at the truck). We made it to the gas station without incident, and I decided never to press my luck in that way again.
I bet that very important fellow would like to reward me richly for the events of that day, but the memory is thanks enough.
A few months ago; two guys, walking with a petrol can who stuck thumbs out as I passed. It wasn’t a car breakdown, as I’d assumed, but some misfuelling issue with other equipment, I didn’t quite get the story.
I figure you really would have to be a special kind of crazy to threaten the driver from the back of the car they were driving, especially as guns are rare here and though it’s rural by UK standards, there’s usually someone in earshot.
Last time I hitchhiked myself was about 12 years ago, in New Zealand. I remain not dedded.
The one and only time I picked up a hitchhiker was about 35 years ago. We lived in Germany, because Mr VOW at that time was Sergeant VOW and stationed there in the US Army. I was driving from our home in government leased housing to my job at a different post. It was wintertime, and almost record cold, along with the aftermath of an ice storm the previous night.
Several intersections before reaching the post, I saw a man in BDUs, hugging himself tightly except for the thumb extended. All I could feel was pity, and I stopped. His car had died, and he was desperate to get to work, at the same post I was going to. He told me to just drop him at the gate, and instead I drove him all the way to his unit.
Would I pick up someone again? Only under the exact same circumstances.
~VOW
Last year, I picked up some hikers getting back to their car at a different trailhead. I do it once or twice every summer. I typically hitch back to my car after a hike about once a year.
Well over 30 years ago. I was pulling out of the airport w Mrs. FtG and at least one of the FtGkids. There was a woman with her thumb out and luggage. The guy in the car ahead of us started slowing down and it all looked creepy. So I decided to not let something bad happen and pulled over.
Turns out she was visiting my university for the weekend, I knew right where to take her, etc. That we were a family and I worked at the university must have put her at ease. No real extra time for us.
That’s a good point. I think the days where all but a very few, very intrepid people will actually set out to get from point A to point B via hitchhiking are pretty well gone. We are either more aware of the inherent dangers or less tolerant thereof. I would define giving a lift to a stranger in an emergency as “picking up a hitchhiker” in these circumstances.
Come to think, I don’t recall the last time past 2010 when I saw a person in such straits. Now that cell phones are ubiquitous and friends, AAA, and Uber are within easy reach for all but the most luckless of souls, such opportunities to help are less common, with the possible exception of folks in remote areas like the hikers in Telemark’s post.
I don’t pick up hitchers per se, but here in Oregon there are plenty of places a car can break down or wreck where there’s no cell service and I’ve given rides to people in distress pretty often. Especially out in central and eastern Oregon, leaving someone on the side of the road with a brokedown vehicle could mean a death sentence depending on the weather.
The hitcher turned out to have had her car break down and was trying to get to a job interview by a combination of walking and hitching; she was afraid she was going to be late. I took her there (on my way anyway). A couple of weeks later I stopped in there to buy something and she was working behind the counter, having gotten the job. (I don’t usually recognize people, but she had something conspicuous about her – piercings, IIRC.)
I have a good one. Living in Albuquerque, 1970-71 with my friend in Seattle, he came home for Christmas and we drove back to Seattle in my, um, 68 Austin Healy Sprite. Had fun going up the coast and having my convertible top violated on New Year’s Eve in San Francisco. But it was coming back. I could easily drive for 24 hours in those days, but I’m coming down through Oregon where every logging trucker owns 30 or 40 miles of winding narrow roads. And it’s raining. Real hard. And they aren’t giving me a break, so I’m just taking them in my sports vehicle with tight suspension and steering. I’ve always been lucky being stupid. So I get down to Grants Pass and pull off the highway to gather up resources to proceed, and I stop at this stop sign, and this hippy is standing in the pouring, mother-fucking rain, straight up, hand straight out, and I just opened the door. Shoved his pack into my little rig, and I took him to Eugene. Probably crashed with them, but I don’t remember.
Maybe six months ago. I live in a rural area, it’s not uncommon to see them once in a while.
I used to hitch rides when I was in college, and when I lived in Alaska. It was common knowledge that vehicles with cracked windshields were more likely to pick you up.
About 35 years ago. A kid around age 10 was trying to get a ride and so I stopped. His mother’s car had broken down or something and she couldn’t come and pick him up.
I hitchhiked around Japan several times in my 20s, and had many wonderful stories out of it.
One guy was walking along the side of the road carrying an empty gas can. I gave him a ride to the gas station and back to his car.
Another guy was a college student at the library who wanted a ride to his apartment. When I ran into him six months later and tried to talk to him he looked at me like I was a stalker and a total stranger. He had no idea why I knew personal details about him.