Oct 10, 2011
So, where have all the hitchhikers gone? That’s the question we asked ourself the other day driving through PCH near San Clemente (aka surfer mecca) on our way to some task we’d given ourself. Having hitchhiked a bit during my college days and even earlier, i’m somewhat familiar with the etiquette, challenges, cautions and risk associated with hitchhiking. However it doesn’t give me any further insights into the substantial drop in the numbers of those poking a finger out for a ride to places unknown over the course of the last 25 years. Unfortunately, we also can’t substantiate any of this “reduction” with any real numbers since hitchhiking never qualified as an legitimate mode of transportation by DMV or other groups. Thus no heavy-duty research available. However our own “personal” observation is that hitchhiking was a classic example of what economists would call a “matching market”, (aka where there’s a person who needs a ride, and there’s a person who’s willing to give a ride). There was some sort of equilibrium in which there was a set of people who wanted to hitchhike, and then there was a set of people who were willing to pick them up. But somehow that equilibrium got destroyed. So What happened to the equilibrium? Easy answer would be: fear, right? Hitchhiking became too risky for driver and hiker. Remember the warnings from your parents or friends? The caution campaigns by the media? The gruesome imagery? The magazine and TV features? The movies even! But was hitchhiking really that dangerous? My take is that our own fears made it worse. Realistic or not, it happened. Hitchhiking drove itself out of existence due to fear.
Others may theorize that it was an increase in the supply of drivers and/or more cars on the road. Personally, i think we just lost our imagination, our sense of adventure. Shame to waste such a great adventure or be hamstrung by fear. Maybe someone will save this generation by bringing along some “hitchkikers renaissance” movement. In the mean time, i’ve got to finish my errands before hitting the road.
It’s one thing to be picked up by a friend or someone else that one knows and trusts, but it’s a whole other matter to get into a car with and put oneself at the mercy of a total stranger whose motives are not known. Therefore, I say, hitchhiking and being picked up by a total stranger(s) is risky for anybody, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, race, religion or sexual orientation. Don’t do it. While most people are perfectly normal and honest, there’s just no telling, if one gets the drift.
Also, our society and the world at large, have gotten much meaner, thus making hitchiking more risky, generally.