I grew up in the Bay Area and remember seeing casual carpooling in Berkeley at least as far back as 1982. Works really well around here.
There’s a casual carpool site right near me in El Cerrito, that’s how I get to work every day (as do a lot of other folks). Works great although there are a few people and vehicles I won’t ride in - not because the person is creepy but because I recognize the guy who can’t drive worth diddly, the woman who keeps her radio so loud my ears ring, the car with the tiny backseat that cramps my back or the guy with no seatbelts, that kinda thing.
On the few occasions when I have to drive to work I always stop and pick up a couple of carpoolers, never had a bad passenger.
Carpooling back after work isn’t quite as convenient (you have to find someone going your way, much easier in the morning when everybody is heading into SF) but plenty of people do it.
Speaking of matronly types, when I was about seventeen, I hitchhiked from the small town where my parents ran a pub into the bigger town nearby. I was feeling very much the rebel. Oh yeah, Mr Dangerous, me. A car comes by, and I casually flick my thumb out, as cool as cool a dude could be.
As the car stops I look at the driver, and it’s the motherly, rosy-cheeked floral apron-wearing cook that worked in our pub. “Oh hello dear, you looked so forlorn there. Jump in, love.”
Hmm.
As for picking up hitchhikers myself, the only time I’d do it I’d actually pick up rough, scary looking guys. But these guys I knew to be safe, because there were always ten or twenty of them over a five mile stretch, and I could tell by their clothes and lunchboxes (and the fact it was 6am) that they were just factory workers. Never had a problem with them.
Of course, in Indonesia, street kids will ride into the city in the morning with a rich businessman, hang around all day, then ride home again in the evening. The car owner gets to use the fast lane, and the kids might get a dollar if they’re lucky.
I remember reading something about how there’s an unwritten code of conduct for DC sluggers that addresses this potential awkwardness, and the potential for annoying the hell out of each other.
I dont’ remember much of it, but I think the basic idea was that it’s up to the driver to set the tone. If he wants the radio on, you listen to the radio and what he chooses. If not, you don’t get radio. A key rule, I think, was that after basic pleasantries the rider keeps quiet unless the driver starts a conversation. If everyone knows the expected conduct, apparently there’s not as much awkwardness because people don’t feel so obligated to be social during what is really just a practical arrangement.
That is indeed the rule. Pleasantries to establish neither of you is psycho and then read the paper or stare out the window.
In the 90s I was riding with this woman on the way to the pentagon who was engaged in the typical Clinton bashing and I said, “I don’t care what you think, just drive.” Believe me, it got quiet in the car real quick.
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