Hitch hiking

[johnh]

Reading a reader's letter in the paper.   Where have all the hitch hikers gone?  Made me think,  I can't remember when I last saw someone hitch hiking.  In the early 1950's, during my National Service, I became an expert hitch hiker.  I was stationed for a short time at Hucknall, near Nottingham, and used to hitch hike to Leeds most week-ends.  I got to know the best places to stand.  When to walk (even though it may be a couple of miles) rather than stand and not get one.  My two best lifts were:  I had set out from the camp in Hucknall and walked about 100 yards when a car stopped and the driver said 'where are you going'.   I said 'Leeds'.  He said 'is City Square OK?'  That was the best and quickest I ever got home.  The other was when I was on the A1 about 10 miles south of Doncaster.  It was snowing, freezing cold and dark.  A bread van stopped and they said that they could drop me the other side of Doncaster, which was great.  There were two in the front so they said I would have to stand in the back.  I got in and we set off.  There was a sliding window between the cab and the back and it slid back and the driver said 'help yourself to a pie'.  There were some lovely big  pork pies on one of the racks and a pork pie has never tasted so good.  I always stop for anyone in uniform but can't remember when I last did as it is so long ago.

[Sibdane]

Reading a reader's letter in the paper.   Where have all the hitch hikers gone?  Made me think,  I can't remember when I last saw someone hitch hiking.  In the early 1950's, during my National Service, I became an expert hitch hiker.  I was stationed for a short time at Hucknall, near Nottingham, and used to hitch hike to Leeds most week-ends.  I got to know the best places to stand.  When to walk (even though it may be a couple of miles) rather than stand and not get one.  My two best lifts were:  I had set out from the camp in Hucknall and walked about 100 yards when a car stopped and the driver said 'where are you going'.   I said 'Leeds'.  He said 'is City Square OK?'  That was the best and quickest I ever got home.  The other was when I was on the A1 about 10 miles south of Doncaster.  It was snowing, freezing cold and dark.  A bread van stopped and they said that they could drop me the other side of Doncaster, which was great.  There were two in the front so they said I would have to stand in the back.  I got in and we set off.  There was a sliding window between the cab and the back and it slid back and the driver said 'help yourself to a pie'.  There were some lovely big  pork pies on one of the racks and a pork pie has never tasted so good.  I always stop for anyone in uniform but can't remember when I last did as it is so long ago.

John, I still see hitchhikers on occasion where I live, but I think has to do more with the fact that towns in my state (MS) are more spread out. It's also illegal here.

Definitely see less and less every year though.

[pete0]

Only every see punks and those guys with the little red license plates. 

[johnh]

That reminded me Pete0,  Years ago, I once passed two guys thumbing a lift.  One had a big ladder and the other had a big Alsatian.  True that.  Didn't give them much chance of a lift.

[MikeO]

Strangely I saw one last week but the first in ages; used to do it all the time when I was younger. Girlfriend of the time and I took three days to get to south Wales on one occasion for a camping trip so we allowed three days to get back. Got picked up in five minutes by a lorry which took us right into central London; and then five minutes later we got picked up by a car that took us to our front door.

On the way there one lift was from a really weird guy who somehow got the conversation round to whether my GF (Rosa) was strong enough to pick him up; Rosa was naïvely buying into it saying she could and he suggested taking us to a nearby car park in the woods to see if she could. I strongly told him that wasn't going to happen and an uncomfortable silence ensued. Few minutes later he saw another young couple hitching in the other direction and within half a mile stopped the car and asked us to get out. Then he did a u-turn doubtless intending to try his luck with them; should really have taken his number plate and called the police but was just relieved to be out of the car so didn't think. 

[Cornish Steve]

In my late teens, my brother and I took our mother's clapped out old car to a friend to be fixed on the cheap. The problem was that we needed to get back home, to a little Cornish village miles away from the town we were now in. We managed to hitch-hike the first five or six miles, but we still had a similar distance to go. No dark, and with very few cars on the road, we tried but to no avail. The road was winding and just two-lane, with typical Cornish hedgerows on each side. No street lights for miles around. We walked in the pitch black for a couple of hours. When we heard a car, we had to figure out, by listening carefully, in which direction it was coming so we could dash quickly to the other side of the road and not get hit. We heard many animals foraging around and several owls. It was an interesting journey home, that's for sure. The next day, I had to walk another 6-7 miles to catch a ferry across the river to England. 

[MikeO]

If I was on my own carrying my crash helmet was always a surefire way to get a quick pick-up; bikers always stopped and I got to ride on the back of some amazing machines during the numerous occasions mine was broken and I couldn't afford to get it fixed. On one occasion I remember a guy accelerated off so hard without me being prepared that my feet ended up next to his ears and I nearly did a backward somersault onto the tarmac.