Hitchhikers: What's your take on them?

Silencer

Silencer

Night Watchman
Staff member
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I've been doing some driving for work for the past half a year, and through an area of the country where you don't see many a coach.

So, some of the time I do see hapless souls who are desperately trying to get to the next town - and also it is winter and everything is frozen, or at least darn muddy.

Most of them are, of couse, dumb enough to try to catch a lift where there's not even enough room to pull over w/o being immediately rear-ended, and certainly, I'm not bored with life enough to be a sport for some sporty gentlemen in tracksuits on a Saturday night. But ocassionally, I do pick up hitchhikers.

So far, only one was drunk, and you get an all warm and fuzzy feeling being helpful to that guy who failed his driver's license test (unlike you) or the lady returning home to Makowiec from Skaryszew from a low-paid job (unlike you).

Still, the Stephen King stories do little to help (see Chattering Teeth), so I am wondering if you have any patented defensive scenarios for such an occasion :)
 
I think a lot of this depends on where you are. In Asia I would occassionally hitch a ride. Those were the days when I was a student and trying to get from one town in Asia to another. I have also picked up people in the US from time to time, but not in years.

Speaking of which, remember this conversation between a hitchhiker and a driver-

John Ryder: Gas stations have cigarettes.
Jim Halsey: What about gas?
John Ryder: I don't need gas.
Jim Halsey: What do you want?
Jim Halsey: What's so funny?
John Ryder: [Stops Laughing] That's what the other guy said.
Jim Halsey: What other guy?
John Ryder: That guy back there, the one we just passed. The guy who picked me up before you did.
Jim Halsey: That was him in there?
John Ryder: Sure it was. He couldn't have walked very far.
Jim Halsey: Why's that?
John Ryder: Because I cut off his legs... and his arms... and his Head. And I'm going to do the same to you.

Jim Halsey: Look, I think you better get out now.
[Silence]
Jim Halsey: . The ride is over.
[Silence]
Jim Halsey: . Goodbye.
John Ryder: I'm going to sit here. And you're going to drive.
 
Always keep a taser gun in your car attached to your steering wheel or keep it close by so u can grab and use it in a flash
 
Hitchikers. Picked up a coupple fo times. Usually people down and out ecnomically needing a ride to the bus/train stop. I would FEEL safe, if I had a trusted friend int he back seat, hiutchiker riding in the front, and if that trusted friend in the back seat had a pistol just in case. But then again, this is in the US, and the safety concerns might be different in the rest of the world.
 
Hitchhikers are all cold-blooded serial killers. Every last one of them.

Incidentally, while I don't hitchhike anymore, I hitchhiked all over Europe a few years back. Fast, cheap, effective. Last time around I reached Nice in a few days. Good 'nough for 'naught.

A lot of the buzz around hitchhiker is just your typical good old American fearmongering. Fear is the opium of the people and all that. The fact is that killers tend to kill people they know. 'cept, I guess, serial killers, but I never heard of a hitchhiking serial killers outside of the movies/books.

In other words; harmless.
 
This is for real: A yuppie couple in New York saw an Hasidic Jewish man hitchiking. They pulled along thinking he was harmless. The man turned out to be a hispanic who pulled a gun on them and took their purse/wallets. They were surprised, saying that he fooled them with the hat and the locks. This was long before the car jacking epidemics.
 
It happened to friends of my parents when I was 14. It was all the talk among the next few gatherings of the adults. You want me to broadcast the names of the couple? Happened on the Manhattan side of the George Washington Bridge. The perp was never caught.
 
Unless you have a source that isn't "a friend of mine", it's still b/s. Sorry. Newspaper article or lies, it's that simple.
 
Well, not exactly. Police Reports don't lie. I will see if I can dig something up for you.
 
Kharn, to be honest, Akudin's story doesn't sound that unbelievable. All sorts of robberies happen, especially if we're talking about large urban areas of the U.S. like New York.

Actually, hitchhiking and robbing as a Hasidic Jew is pretty clever.
 
Being humanitarian, of course I take Hitchhikers, but darn it's nothing like going to the McDonalds drive thru. Darn they fight back like monkeys on acid.
 
Kharn said:
A lot of the buzz around hitchhiker is just your typical good old American fearmongering. Fear is the opium of the people and all that. The fact is that killers tend to kill people they know. 'cept, I guess, serial killers, but I never heard of a hitchhiking serial killers outside of the movies/books.

In other words; harmless.
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I couldn't have said it better myself...which is prob. why I didn't.

I've picked up hitchhikers and the closest to anything bad that ever happened to me was a very drunk bloke acting like a moron.(but he was drunk enough to get beaten up by a 5-year old and calmed down when he realized it)
Unless I'm extremely tired and have to sleep or in a rush somewhere I pick them up,including a bunch of ~18 y/o boys on a Friday night (5 IIRC) and they were talking about "we should beat him up" (not aimed at me,someone they knew /of) and they all said thanks and so on when I dropped them off.

Of course shit can happen when dealing with strangers,but it can happen in a bar,just walking outside,opening the door and so on...
Personally I think life is way too short to go around being scared about what might -and still is very unlikely to- happen.
 
Whats to become of this world if everyone is afraid of everyone else, what ever happened to be a fellow human being and help them in need.

I remember reading an article in my home towns newspaper, this one girl slid off the freeway and it took her 15min to get a car to stop to help. 15 MIN!!! and this was an accident.
 
Odin said:
Whats to become of this world if everyone is afraid of everyone else, what ever happened to be a fellow human being and help them in need.

I remember reading an article in my home towns newspaper, this one girl slid off the freeway and it took her 15min to get a car to stop to help. 15 MIN!!! and this was an accident.
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Actually, people aren't afraid of each other, they've become selfish instead. Why bother stopping for a hitch-hiker when you can just speed up faster and avoid the situation entirely? Ah well. :?
 
Odin said:
Whats to become of this world if everyone is afraid of everyone else, what ever happened to be a fellow human being and help them in need.

I remember reading an article in my home towns newspaper, this one girl slid off the freeway and it took her 15min to get a car to stop to help. 15 MIN!!! and this was an accident.
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Help everyone out? What are you? Some commie! Some socialistic bleeding heart!

JESUS H Fucking Christ!

Oi, your Europeans. All that community solidatarity crap, yeah fine you can complain about not having a ride and maybe hitch a ride.
You can complain that you don't havea job and get years of welfare. YEARS!! I'm sayin. It's all community and crap. That's socialism. But you take it too far... Russia.

But you need to understand. There ain't no guarantees in the world. You can have your problems and look to the community for help, but don't be surprised if you're disappointed. Cause everyone is out for themselves too. They'll talk all that community love crap. Might as well sing Kumbaya by the campire, smoke grass and fuck your neighbor.

Then you get the communists with his hand in your pocket and fucking your wife while mouthing off about worker's paradise that's just a paradise for him because is his governmenbt is just another form of organized crime.

See what they don't tell ya is that its human nature to look after yourself. It's human nature to cheat each other to take advantage of the next sap. That's why we cheat in marriage, why we cheat on taxes, why priests fuck little boys and politicians are crooks. Because human nature rebels against those institutions of constraints that rob us of our inner nature.

And sometimes that inner nature is just wicked.

So you can't go through life expecting someone else to give you a ride.

Because there are no guarantees. Guarantees are based on expectations. We expect politicans to be good, for priests to be pious, for the norms of society to be upheld and better values to rule over the lesser human instincts.

But we know that isn't so.

It's the way we're made, except some are worse than others.

Guarantees are based on human expectation. But expectation of good behavior? That's not logic but wishful thinking.

Guarantees? Fuck.

You see that person you might be taking a ride with, well, you got no idea what's going in that fellow's head.

You're thinking you're getting a free ride. But it don't always work that way. So don't be askin' and don't be complainin if no one picks you up.

And if you get picked up with Mr. Psycho-lunatic, don't be crying when he's got you tied to a chair in some dingy basement and put the electrodes on the gonads. You want to scream and scream? Knock yourself out. Ain't no one there to hear you anymore.

That's the problem with Europe. Everyone is taking the presumption that its all about community love and compassion and understanding.

They don't think that in every heart there's a battle between what's good and what's bad, between the compassionate and the twisted, between the civilized and demented.

That's what's different about the US. In the US, you're on your own.

Private Detective Visser: [narrating] The world is full o' complainers. An' the fact is, nothin' comes with a guarantee. Now I don't care if you're the pope of Rome, President of the United States or Man of the Year; somethin' can all go wrong. Now go on ahead, y'know, complain, tell your problems to your neighbor, ask for help, 'n watch him fly. Now, in Russia, they got it mapped out so that everyone pulls for everyone else... that's the theory, anyway. But what I know about is Texas, an' down here... you're on your own
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(An an aside, this entire thread was written to use this great line from a movie).
 
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