Hitchhiking

SparkyMark123

Just a general query is it a dying art saw a bloke today trying his luck years ago at a service station I worked at happened all the time

So would you stop and help is it prominent where you live

Crabman

Can't remember the last time I spotted a hitch-hiker. No, I would not stop.

There have been cases in the regional press (Midlands) of Eastern Europeans (often lone women it seems) flagging cars down to a layby to ask for help. Once a car had stopped, the blokes would emerge...

In one particular case a young mother who stopped after being flagged down was beaten in front of her child and had her handbag stolen.

That was her reward for stopping and trying to help.

mad_rich

I tend to believe people most people are generally good, and I would rather trust them. There are horror stories, but I don't know of one myself, or among the people I know who hitch/ have hitched/ pick up hitchers.

If I see a hitcher (pretty rare these days) I make a quick judgement and usually go with gut instinct. I've never not stopped, unless it's obvious I can't help.

I tend to spend a lot of time in the Lake District. I think in these areas it's a bit more common. Lack of public transport, lots of backpackers, walkers trying to do shuttles back to their cars etc. In fact I often plan a walk based on leaving a car at one end and relying on being able to hitch.

fivetide

Never stopped but you still see the odd one. Usually not a lot of point as they are at the start of the motorway/main road on the way home and i'm turning off a few miles up the road when they usually want to go a fair distance.

Stopped a few times to help bikers/check they were ok just in case they did need a lift though.

agrinnall

I occasionally stop to pick people up, but living in the Highlands I know that there aren't many options for public transport on some routes so my expectation is that the hitcher actually does want to get somewhere - which so far has always proved to be the case.

forgotmyname

I used to when on the HGV's. Until we had to start collecting cash from customers. Then i stopped.

I left £10,000 on the passenger seat once in a brown envelope and forgot to lock it. oops.. Luckily i was in a small town out past Banbury.

It was still there when i returned. Could you imagine the bosses face if that went missing..

But never picked one up in my car.

oldhand

forgotmyname wrote: »

I used to when on the HGV's. Until we had to start collecting cash from customers. Then i stopped.

I left £10,000 on the passenger seat once in a brown envelope and forgot to lock it. oops.. Luckily i was in a small town out past Banbury.

It was still there when i returned. Could you imagine the bosses face if that went missing..

But never picked one up in my car.

Used to drive hgv also and often picked up hitch hikers,never had any worries,that was in the 80s wasnt any different to today perhaps but I wouldnt pick up any man who looked a lot bigger than me just in case,however many men then looking a lift if they were drivers also would flash a hgv licence (it was a little black book then) and it was a passport to a lift.

scotsbob

I always stop for a hitchhiker, wherever I am. I also used to be a hitchhiker in my teens and twenties.

In the Scottish highlands, where public transport is rather scarce, it is considered an impertinence not to give a lift to a hitchhiker.

paddedjohn

I used to stop and pick them up but never ever stopped for a woman, too scared of them crying rape or such like.
Picked one bloke up from near Taunton and it turned out he was going home to Ellesmere Port which was within 5 miles of my destination at Stanlow Oil Terminal.

tim9966

I do still see it quite often by the motorway, but it's nearly always a car delivery man waving his trade plates trying to get a lift home.

Saturnalia

I don't think I'd dare try hitching. I know you hear urban legends about hitchhikers disappearing and never being seen again but I don't think I've heard a real news story about one coming to grief? And they do say victims normally come to harm from people they know well, 'stranger danger' is rare... so it probably isn't chancy, but when we've had it dinned into us since childhood never to get into cars with strange men...*

And I don't think I'd stop to pick one up as well as I have seen the news articles about the gang lying in wait behind the bushes. So by the same token, probably most drivers are wary of stopping for a stranger too.

And TBH, you can get coach tickets for £1 with National Express & Megabus, so trying to hitch doesn't seem worth the faff or the money-saving.

*Funny how we were never warned away from strange women, only ever men. Wouldn't a child then assume a woman - or a couple - was safe?