Hitchhiking or Picking up Hitchhikers: Why I'm Against It, in Both Instances:
Hitchhiking and/or picking up hitchhikers has long been very common here in the United States and elsewhere in the world. Some people claim that it's a good way to see the country, to have an adventure, and to meet new people. Is it really that safe to meet somebody while in an enclosed car with a complete stranger, however? No, I don't think so. Many people bring up the subject of the majority of people who get raped, murdered, or assaulted, saying that most people, whoever they may be get raped, assaulted, or murdered by somebody who's known to them (be it a family member, a friend, etc.). While that's true, people bring up that subject in the middle of this particular topic are totally missing the point; the point being that when someone either accepts a ride with somebody in an enclosed vehicle that s/he doesn't know from a hole in the ground, or picks up a strange hitchhiker that s/he doesn't know, and that most people are perfectly normal and honest, there's really no telling what kind of a person they one that they get a ride with, or pick up. A person could get a ride with, or pick up somebody who's criminally disposed, is drunk or stoned-out on illegal drugs, who's just plain not in his/her right mind, or a careless or dangerous driver, or hitchhiker up to no good.
I'll admit that my sister and I used to hitchhike back in the 1970's, but I hitchhiked far less than she did. We both agreed that we wouldn't do it today, at all. While hitchhiking and/or picking up hitchhikers is rather common in other parts of the world, especially in much smaller countries than the United States, it has never, despite what many people say, particularly safe to hitchhike or pick up hitchhikers here in the United States. The United States is much too large, too impersonal, and much too gun-happy for that. Even though the crime rate here in the United States overall has gone down, the risks of either hitchhiking, or picking up hitchhikers are still there--and quite real, to boot.
Many people who've either hitchhiked or picked up hitchhikers have been physically/verbally harassed, dropped off at someplace other than their destination, robbed, assaulted, or worse.
In the early to mid-1970's, Boston, MA. was in the national spotlight for a number weeks, due to a whole slue of young women, ranging in age from their late teens to their mid-20's, who disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again while hitchhiking to school, work, or wherever. Their bodies turned up much later, either by the roadsides, or in distant wooded areas. The body of one woman was found nailed to the wall of a tenement in Boston's Roxbury section.
Another rather grisly example of hitchhiking gone wrong involved two high school couples out on a Saturday night-Sunday morning double-date. The teens were picked up by two young men, who, while clearly intoxicated, did not seem hostile, at least not at first. The girls were let off first, but then things took a very nasty turn. Both of the boys were taken to a secluded place near the Lincoln, MA/Waltham, MA line, in the Winter Street area, and were badly beat up. One of the teenaged boys received a concussion due to being hit over the head with a blunt, heavy instrument. The other was worked over with fists and feet. One of the boys almost got mowed down by their attackers' car as they were both escaping to get help. A nasty scene all around.
There was a great deal of hitchhiking through the 1960's and the 1970's. Often, I'd notice people standing by the Massachusetts Turnpike or other large state highways with very fast-moving vehicular traffic on them, on various exit ramps, holding signs indicating where they were headed. In the 1980's, beginning with the ushering in of the Reagan years, I no longer noticed people hitchhiking.
My grandparents, up until the mid-1960's, used to pick up hitchhikers, and even take them to breakfast, or wherever. When a friend of my grandfather's once picked up a hitchhiker, the guy got into the backseat. Looking in his rearview mirror, my grandfather's friend noticed that the man he'd picked up had a sledge-hammer, and was about to hit him in the back of the head with it. Quickly, he put up his hand to protect his head, and my grandfather's friend, while he survived, had a permanently damaged hand; it was totally deformed and out of shape.
There was a particularly awful incident when a young guy picked up two hitchhikers. Eric Wilson was driving west. He was robbed, assaulted and murdered.
Back in March of 1975, two young college men here in Boston who were hitchhiking after spending an evening downtown, were hitchhiking home. They were picked up by two rough-and-tough men from Southie (South Boston, MA), and also brutally murdered.