Back before I had my own wheels, hitchhiking is how I got around. I can remember some amazing trips, like up to Cape Ann, to NYC from Lancaster PA, back to boarding school after missing the bus back from a sporting event. My parents did not approve, lectured me on the dangers, but never flat out forbid my hitchhiking. Later on, when I got my wheels, I can remember picking up a bunch of different hitchhikers, pretty much all guys, all young, all scruffy looking. Some of 'em had signs., some didn't. There would be clusters of hitchhikers at key thruway exits.
Not any more. I haven't seen a hitchhiker on a thru entrance in twenty years or more. My kids never hitchhiked. Nobody else's kids did it either. I think it has died out.
I assume the missing children on milk cartons campaign scared parents and kids enough that kids quit hitching.
3 comments:
I've noticed this, too.
I think your analysis as to why this has happened is spot on: No one wants to have their picture on a milk carton. Ironically, it's probably safer to hitchhike than it has been in years, but to hear the media tell it people are being murdered everywhere in large numbers all the time.
I wonder, if some kid were to try hitching today, would anyone stop and give him a ride? Or would they call the cops?
One has to wonder whether that kid would end up in a mental institution because as 'everyone knows' hitchhiking is so dangerous that everyone who does it dies, so he/she must have a death wish and is trying to commit suicide. But then everyone who doesn't do it also dies.
The perceived risk is orders of magnitude above the actual risk, but as everyone knows, perception is reality...even when it isn't.
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