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Legal status In almost all countries in the world hitchhiking is legal. Walking on highways is usually illegal in Western Europe. In North America hitchhiking is forbidden in some areas, such as near prisons. In some cases, a local government, such as New York City where hitchhiking is widely considered very dangerous, may ban it altogether. Certain US states have created conditional bans, such as Utah, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Nevada; it is frequently illegal on the actual shoulder of Interstate highways, but is usually legal from highway on-ramps. Nevada, for instance, bans hitchhiking, or signaling for a ride, altogether, but walking on rural interstates is permitted. The same law applies in Wyoming. On the other hand, the state of Oregon (with the exception of counties in the tri-met bus system--Clackamas, Multnomah, and Washington) permits the freedom of hitchhiking as well as walking right on the Interstate. Oklahoma, for instance only expressly bans peds and hikers on tolled interstates-the free ones are 'ok', provided one is in a safe area for cars to briefly pull over. Many Canadian highways similarly have hitchhiking bans. Areas which do not permit pedestrian traffic (such as limited-access highways) are typically by implication off-limits to hitchhikers, even in the absence of laws directly addressing hitchhiking itself. Roads and their segments signed or otherwise designated as no-stopping zones are also de facto prohibiting hitchhiking since vehicles cannot legally stop to pick up hitchhikers, even if pedestrians are not prohibited. Method Most places have some regionally-dependent method by which a hitchhiker signals to passing drivers that they are looking for a ride. In many parts of the world, including North America, hitchhikers traditionally stretch out one arm and stick out their thumb pointing up. In South Africa, a hitchhiker may show an oncoming car the back of his hand with the index finger raised, rather than the thumb. In Poland, the hand is held flat, and waved. In India, the hand is waved with the palm facing downwards. In Israel, the sign is a stretched forefinger pointed toward the road. A hitchhiker may also hold a sign with the name of their destination. This saves drivers from having to stop to find out where they are headed and may have the effect of inducing some drivers to stop when they otherwise would not. This is considered unsafe by some, because a predatory driver can then act like they were headed exactly where the hitchhiker is, just to get them in the car. Using signs with a destination that is (too) far away from the current location may deter drivers, although there are two locations in the United Kingdom where it is possible to have a sign pointing to a location that is more than 800 miles away, those to being Land's End and John O'Groats, if only because they are the two most distant points in the United Kingdom and have a history of travel between them in a multitude of ways. Often nothing is given or performed in exchange for the lift, but some hitchhikers will contribute money for fuel and others will feel the provision of company on the trip is itself a worthy contribution. In some places, such as parts of central Asia, hitchhikers in cargo trucks, especially foreigners, are expected to pay for the ride, usually some portion of the usual bus fare for the trip. Reasons A hitchhiker may have several reasons to travel in this way, amongst them: A mixture of the first two reasons is when the only alternative is an expensive taxi. Many current-day hitchhikers combine hitchhiking with hospitality exchange networks for many of the same reasons (cheap; social political reasons; meeting people). Car drivers may also have several reasons to give lifts, for instance: Reputation Although most hitchhiking occurs without incident, it has a bad reputation with some people. Some criminals who prey on the good will of others to rob or molest have masqueraded as hitchhikers to procure victims, or picked up unsuspecting hitchhikers themselves. There is some dispute as to whether it is actually less safe to hitchhike now than in the past, or if simply more reporting increases the visibility of negative examples — see Safety below. This appears to be restricted to the western world however. For example, many eastern European governments firmly supported hitchhikers and in many eastern European and developing nations it is still a very mundane and ordinary occurrence, with hitchhikers a part of the ordinary social landscape, in some places crowding one another out waiting for rides. Any number of urban legends are told about hitchhiking, in which either the hitchhiker or the car driver may take on the role of a boogeyman. For example, some stories have the driver as a ghost, or the hitchhiker as an escaped convict. The folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand wrote an entire book titled The Vanishing Hitchhiker, using the Vanishing Hitchhiker legend (references) as his prototype. Chances of getting a ride There are many things to consider that affect the hitchhiker's chances of catching a ride. Some of these include: Traffic density Catching a ride does of course depend on there being people to offer one. If someone is trying to hitchhike and only sees a vehicle go by every half-hour, it may be to their advantage to walk to a more frequently travelled road. There does however appear to be a maximum as well. Once the frequency of the traffic becomes too high, the chance of someone stopping actually appears to drop. This may occur for various reasons: Traffic speed The actual speed of the traffic plays a major role in the chances of someone stopping. If a vehicle is moving at high speed, it takes considerably more effort to stop and then get back up to speed than it does if they are moving at a slower pace to start with. For this reason, one of the best places to catch a ride is immediately after an intersection or any other place where vehicles are forced to stop or slow down. Road condition In order for someone to stop and pick up a passenger, the road must offer a relatively safe means of doing so. Most drivers will pull over to the shoulder of the road if one is available. If there is no place for a driver to pull off of the road, then the traffic needs to be light enough that one can stop in the road without obstructing it. Presentation The way hitchhikers present themselves is another major factor in how likely they are to catch a ride. Usually, someone's chance of catching a ride is far greater if they look clean and non-threatening. Standing in a well-lit place offers drivers a good chance to look at you before stopping. In the case of a longer journey, having a backpack visible tells drivers that you are a serious backpacker, not a local, seeking to get a short ride. (This is important in less developed countries, where hitching complements regular public transportation.) A motorist hitchhiking because their own vehicle has broken down may find that remaining at the location of the disabled vehicle positively affects presentation. As some people have negative thought toward tattoos, such as in Japan and South Korea where most people consider tattoos possible affiliations with criminal gangs, people showing tattoos may be much less likely to be picked up as tattoos scare some motorists. Number of people The more people who are trying to hitch a ride together, the smaller becomes the chance of getting picked up, simply because many drivers don't have space for more than one or two people. Drivers also often use lack of space as an excuse to not pick people up. While hitchhiking with a friend or two is safer and more fun, it often makes it slower for the above reasons. single females with more than three pieces of luggage or no luggage whatsoever seem to have the hardest time getting rides, as many people tend to think they are 'trouble' (on the run from the cops, a crazy 'old man', or both.) Even worse, they may not really be a hitchhiker, but a prostitute posing as one. Weather A little bit of rain or other precipitation can work in the hitchhiker's favor, since many drivers will have more empathy towards the hitchhiker. Too much, however, can hurt the hitchhiker's chances, because drivers will be less eager to have a wet passenger getting their car seats wet or muddy. Time of day Drivers are in general much less likely to pick up hitchhikers at night. Under some conditions, in high-speed highway traffic at night, drivers may not even be able to see a hitchhiker until it is already too late to safely stop. a handheld CB radio can be most useful in this scenario. Location Urban areas are known for having higher crime rates, and therefore drivers are more paranoid about picking someone up in these areas. In the US, many hitchhikers find that, when possible, getting a ride from a friend to a location outside of 'the city' (wherever that may be) increases their chances, while attempting to hitchhike from an actual city location only causes frustration. Additionally, some areas of countries may have slightly different cultural traditions regarding hospitality. In the US, for instance, hitchhiking is often easiest to do in the Midwest and Pacific Northwest states. Hitchhiking in literature The writer Jack Kerouac immortalized hitchhiking in his book On The Road. The road has a fascination to Americans; countless writers have written of the road and/or hitchhiking, such as John Steinbeck, whose book The Grapes of Wrath opens with a hitched ride. Roald Dahl wrote a short story called The Hitchhiker, in which he uses the idea that you can hear fascinating stories when giving people a lift to introduce one of his trade-mark eccentric characters. Another lesser known author, a lifetime hitchhiker named Irv Thomas, incorporates hitchhiking into his writing perspective and lifestyle in Innocence Abroad: Adventuring Through Europe at 64 on $100 Per Week, as well as recounting his hitchhiking travels in a memoir, Derelict Days...Sixty Years on the Roadside Path to Enlightenment. Douglas Adams postulated on interstellar hitchhiking in his cult classic The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, while fellow science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein described interdimensional hitchhiking in his book Job: A Comedy of Justice. The protagonist of Tom Robbins' Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Sissy Hankshaw, becomes legendary as a hitchhiker in part because of her unusually large thumbs. British comedian Tony Hawks writes about hitchhiking around Ireland with a refrigerator as the result of a drunken bet in Round Ireland With a Fridge. An in-depth analysis on the practice of hitchhiking in Poland was published, aptly called Autostop Polski ("Polish hitchhiking") *. An avid researcher into the phenomenon of hitchhiking, Bernd Wechner *, has compiled an extensive literature on hitchhiking comprising many hundreds of works from newspaper articles, to research papers and books. A large portion of this work has been digitized and can be shared electronically with other researchers*. Crime The safety of hitchhiking varies from country to country. In the United States, where hitchhiking had been a fairly common means to travel from one location to another well into the 1970s, particularly among the young, the practice has greatly declined in the past several decades and is extremely rare today. This may be because of the theory that it is unsafe. It can also be noted that many rural areas now have extensive local bus systems. There have been very few efforts to objectively study the safety of hitchhiking. Two notable efforts include: California Crimes and Accidents Associated with Hitchhiking, Operational Analysis Section, California Highway Patrol (CHP), 1974 Conclusion: the results of this study do not show that hitchhikers are over-represented in crimes or accidents beyond their numbers. When considering statistics for all crimes and accidents in California, it appears that hitchhikers make a minor contribution. Anhalterwesen und Anhaltergefahren, BKA-Forschungsreihe, Sonderband, Wiesbaden, 1989 Conclusion: The current study has demonstrated, that the potential danger while hitchhiking is significantly lower than it is estimated to be and therefore the sharing of rides by and with strangers can very well be included in transport planning. Neither work was highly publicized. The authors of the German study, easily the most recent and comprehensive study suggest very real efforts to suppress and discredit their results. Such is the apparent strength of the conviction that hitchhiking must be unsafe, that objective evidence is anything but popularized and lauded. In summary: there is a dominant belief that hitchhiking is dangerous, but every effort to find actual evidence of this danger objectively has been unable to do so. Road safety While much of the public discourse regarding the safety of hitchhiking is concerned with violent crime, road safety is an equally important factor; some hitchhikers argue that one is much more likely to be run over than to be assaulted. Hitchhikers can reduce the risk by being highly visible, by standing next to rather than in the road, and by refusing to let themselves be dropped in unsafe places (e.g. on the roadside of a motorway). Hitchhiking can also put drivers into dangerous situations (e.g. rear-end collisions when a driver suddenly stops). Books and webpages on hitchhiking often advise to "Think for the driver", which means hitchhikers must also consider the drivers' safety when selecting locations for hitchhiking and deciding where to be dropped. Miscellaneous
See also Famous hitchhikers Country specific Stories, trips | |||||||||||
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