When was the last you've seen or picked up a hitchhiker or hitchhiked yourself?

[zinfamous]

I hitched all the way from ontario to alberta. It was a fucking nightmare to be honest.

I think Mayne hitchhiking the Canadian Highway is the premise of some David Lynch flick.

 

[Rifter]

I picked up a lady on the side of the highway once, the main reason was because i figured it was pretty dangerous to be walking down a busy highway i dont usually stop for hitchhikers.

Turned out she had just had a huge fight with her roomate because she had lost her job and was short on rent and decided she was moving back to alberta to her parents place. Her older POS car broke down, she had no money to fix it, so she grabbed one backpack with as much of her things as she could cram in it and started hitch hiking.

I was on my way to work, at the time i was a long haul dispatcher for a freight company that ran most of BC and Alberta.

I ended up taking her to work with me and arranging for one of our drivers to take her with him on his night run to edmonton so she got home fine to her parents.

She still to this day sends me Christmas cards, and that was 8 years ago.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Hmm..I recall being broke down or out of gas in the middle of the night one time and getting picked up to go get gas by a nice family.

I also remember being broke down and drunk at 2 am and having to walk 6 miles to a gas station...man that sucked. (I wasn't driving, we had a dd fyi unfortunately apparently his car sucked).

 

[Perknose]

I hitched all the way from ontario to alberta. It was a fucking nightmare to be honest.

Omg, of course it was! I feel for those unwitting souls who picked you up.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

I hitchiked one time in Yosemite National Park six years ago after getting extremely sick from altitude and hiking down to the nearest road (Tioga Pass Road). I knew there was a shuttle service along Tioga Pass Road that I could have caught a ride to the Tuolumne Meadows campground in the afternoon, but it would have meant sleeping at 8600 feet since I would have missed the bus down to the valley in that case. So I hitchiked a few miles to the Tuolumne Meadows campground so I could catch the bus down to the valley (around 4400 feet) that day and not chance sleeping at 8600 feet.

 

[frozentundra123456]

never

Me neither.

 

[Perknose]

I hitch-hiked over much of these United States, including back and forth from coast to coast more than once. I also hitched a ton all over Europe. If you want to get to know a country, stick your damn thumb out.

Because of this, in the many years I've been home, I've always striven to pick up everyone I reasonably can, including, in the past, some incredibly sketchy characters I had to force myself to stop for. Nothing, not one bad thing, has ever happened to me on either end of the thumb.

One thing every veteran hitcher knows. While rush hour would seem to present a surfeit of cars with plenty of room in them for you, it is one of the WORST times and places to try and get a ride. Seems everyone hates their damn job, is in a hurry to get home to the wife and kids they detest, and is in no mood to be kind to anyone. Strange that, but true.

But, yeah, OP, it does seem that hitch-hikers have largely vanished from our roads. At the end of WWII, it is my understanding that the "powers that be" actively encouraged folks to pick up hitchers, especially returning servicemen just trying to get home.

And aren't we ever and all . . . just trying to get home.

 

[PlanetJosh]

Last time was in the 80's when I gave a 20 something hitchhiker guy a 3 mile ride to a community college in California. Turns out he was a student there like me.

 

[lxskllr]

One of the more unusual pickups I did was a guy who just got released from jail. I was bored, so I picked him up, and gave him a ride back to the hood. That was waaaay back when I still enjoyed driving. Not sure I ever got a ride actually hitchhiking, but I did get picked up a couple times walking. I only stuck a thumb out a couple times. Usually, I was just ready for a long walk, and sometimes people would offer a ride.

 

[nakedfrog]

let me guess...she never drove you all the way to school? come on, man!

Well... yeah, she drove me there and dropped me off. Not the most exciting story.