What proportion of criminals then are self-preserving and what proportion self-destructive? Hard to say, but what is clear is that ride sharing still embraces a level of risk - self destructive criminals are by no means uncommon, or at least not as uncommon as we'd like them to be. They appear in the news with monotous regularity and will get you in a car, at home, in restaurant, at the movies, in the subway - wherever they happen to find an expression for their destructive lunacy, I guess. They wipe out men, women, children, individuals, groups. They rape, they maim, they kill. If we consider furthermore that the calculating self-preserving ciminal can use a ride sharing agency and avoid being traced all the same, that element of risk also exists.
Now let's look quickly at two broad styles of hitch-hiking, the passive and the active. The passive hitcher stands and waits for a driver to pull over. The active hitcher approaches drivers and asks for a ride, generally at service stations, parking lots, traffic lights or stationary queues. Both styles enjoy relatively equal popularity in my experience, and each has its benefits. Moving traffic for example can only be passively petitioned, while active petitioning yields more results. Passive hitching will often produce a more welcome and entertaining ride than active hitching. The key difference for the point of this article is that in the passive scenario the driver has the power of choice, the hitcher has little. In the active scenario on the other hand the hitcher has much more power of choice.
Consider now the would-be criminal (self-preserving or self-destructive - it matters not because the hitcher exercises little or no threat of identification in any case). If the criminal has the power of choice, and sees a possible victim by the side of the road (the passive hitcher), then this hitcher is bound for trouble. On the other hand, if the hitcher has the power of choice, what is the likelihood that by asking around with discretion and judgment, that a would-be criminal will be approached? The passive hitcher is basically an advertisment inviting any lunatic to pull over and have their wicked way. The active hitcher is much less likely to find haphazardly a criminal among the drivers petitioned than the passing criminal is to find a hitcher standing by the roadside. I'd argue basically, that the chances of a criminal encounter are considerably less for the active hitcher, considerably more for the passive hitcher.
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