
On the Road in 1980 - mstats
https://standpointmag.co.uk/issues/july-august-2019/on-the-road/
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sigil
You’d be surprised how easy it _still_ is to hitchhike across America, and how
many good people you’ll meet.

A friend of mine persuaded me to try it a few years back. I was skeptical. I’d
heard the cautionary tales, figured the narrative that we’ve become a low-
trust society was basically correct, and definitely didn’t expect people to
invite _two_ strange men into their car. And yet that is exactly what
happened, 3 or 4 times a day, for a week and a thousand miles.

Not everyone was a shining beacon of light, but some genuinely were, and the
cross section of humanity was a continual surprise. (The article captures this
well.) There was a bagpiper, a young ex-marine, a woman who may have been
stealing ming vases, a social worker and her sister who took us on a tour of
the Snake River, and an air traffic controller on the way to his mother’s
funeral. He only mentioned that about 4 hours in. A common thread was that
people were in a “real” place in life. We were too — hitchhiking asks you to
be vulnerable. You might stand by an on-ramp for the better part of a day
while a stream of cars passes you and passes judgment on you. You learn to let
go of things you can’t control.

I had to end my trip in Salt Lake City, a place I didn’t know much about and
had never thought of visiting. I loved it so much I left NYC and moved here.
It’s been 8 years now. Funny to think it all started with a hitchhike! You
never know what’s out on the road.

~~~
raducu
In poorer countries it is often a necessity.

Romania is being shaken by the case of a serial killer choosing his very young
victims from poor rural areas who were hitchhiking, so I'm pretty sure the
hitchhiking culture will change.

I've never hitchhiked myself, but I used to pick up hitchhikers before I was
married and had children.

No great stories besides children up to no good, a drunken lady who had no
idea where she wanted to go,on which I was able to use "the voice" to trick
her into leaving my car, but mostly poor and weary people trying to make ends
meet.

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buro9
In the mid-1990s I hitched across the UK.

Not once, but constantly for 2.5 years.

I was homeless, rough sleeping, and instead of choosing hostels I chose to
travel the UK - this was a survival tactic, hostels were not nice or safe
places. I would hitch from one city to another, and my sign would simply say
"North" or "South".

I had the greatest chance of being picked up at the slip road exiting a
service station. So sometimes if I woke in a city I would walk 10-15 miles to
get to the first service station on a motorway out of town. This is easy
around London or in the midlands, but really hard in the South West.

The people I met... oh wow. It was almost exclusively solo male drivers who
picked people up. They were doing long road journeys and wanted company and to
stay awake and engaged. To not fall asleep at the wheel.

Your role as a hitcher... to be a graceful, clean, respectful passenger and to
bring conversation and to know when to be quiet.

The people though. I once was picked up by one of the Birmingham Six
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Six](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Six)
, on another occasion by a man who was dying and using his remaining months
talking to people by picking them up hitching. There were saviours who would
go out of their way in deep winter to get me somewhere safe. There were others
who were themselves a danger and the propositions I received were... out
there. I only once felt the need to do a runner at the first opportunity.

Mostly though, people were incredibly kind, considerate, cool.

And universally, everyone that picked me up said that the reason they did so
was that they had once hitched and felt a need to continue to offer that
kindness now that they had the means to pick someone up and give them a lift.

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dmckeon
Back in the 1970s I hitched across the US about 3 times, over various routes,
and all of Heren’s story rings true to me, especially the huge variety of
drivers willing to offer rides. About a third to a half of the people who
picked me up remarked, in almost the same words, “I used to hitch when I was
younger, but it feels too dangerous now” [<1980]. It was troubling to find,
more recently, that my youthful sense of immortality had faded, leaving me
saying the same words to younger people.

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hestipod
I hitchhiked quite often in Europe around the turn of the century. Something
that was unheard of in my suburban middle American youth. It seemed like the
most normal thing in the world in Central Europe/The Baltics especially with
travelers in orderly queues respecting who arrived first etc. Mostly it was
great and someone would pick you up in short order and the resultant
conversations were interesting. Occasionally you'd get dropped in a bad spot
or an unlucky time and you'd wait a while. Only once did I give up and take a
train after 24 hours of nothing and sleeping overnight on a park bench in the
rain. I'd love to have the health and freedom of those days again.

I experienced everything from dirt poor people in rusting apart cars who were
willing to share everything they had with you, to people in obscenely
expensive suits and luxury rides who were unbothered by your road grime. A
particularly memorable trip was in a high end Mercedes at terrifying speeds
from Genoa, Italy through southern France, and having/getting to wander around
Monaco for a few hours in while the driver tended to some business there on
the way. The cheapest thing I could find to drink was a 10 Euro lemonade at a
cafe as I watched private helicopters come and go from a seaside heliport.
Definitely too rich a place for me, but one I never though I would see.

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S_A_P
The concept of hitchhiking is such an anachronism now that I had to suspend
disbelief as I watched “once upon a time I Hollywood” that I spent most of the
time reconciling being the hitchhiker and the driver and why either side would
feel like this is a rational option.

~~~
mc32
I don’t know when but hitchhiking from roadways (it’s okay from parking lots
and similar) became an offense in California sometime in the seventies I
guess. That said I’ve picked up hitchhikers a couple of times but not just
random people. The context is broken down car, but not s beater, and people
didn’t look out of place (suspicious). But yeah it’s s rarity.

