A Standard Experiment: How to determine present day efficacy

To cut through this speculation and promote some uniformity, I'd like to lay out the bare necessities of a standard experiment that can conceivably be picked up by college students everywhere, or active thumbers, as a guideline for experimental hitch-hiking. It would aim, unlike my notes of years gone by, or even those of Robert Prins, to produce results that are comparable with those of the 1970s. Experiments conducted today, following this guideline should reveal not only useful information about the here and now, modern motoring attitudes and driver psychology but also conceivably lend some insight into that dogged question "how have things changed over the last few decades?"

With that in mind, and eight role models from the 1970s, I present:

The Suite 101 Standard Hitch-hiking Experiment

An experimenter attempts to solicit a ride from passing traffic.

A trial is a single effort by an experimenter (or experimenters) to solicit a ride from passing motorists, lasting as long as it takes to win the offer of a ride.

The success rate is one divided by the number of cars passing the hitch-hiker before the offer eventuates. Only cars in a position to offer a ride are counted, meaning busses, taxis, police cars, ambulances and fire engines are not counted¹.

On multi-lane roads, if traffic is dense, only cars in the outside lane are counted, if traffic is sparse, all lanes are counted².

The precise conditions of experiment and rules followed in counting are to be clearly documented.

A variable is an experimental condition that is altered between trials in an effort to determine if changes in that condition have a statistically significant effect upon the success rate.

An experiment is a series of one or more trials and may legitimately have any number of variables (none, one or more) or trials. The more variables chosen, the more combinations there are to explore. Aim for 10 or more trials for each combination of variables being explored.

Standard variables and suggested values are:

Sex: male, female, male+female, male+male, female+female

Dress: sloppy, casual, formal

Eye contact: yes, no

Time: day, night

Location: as desired³

The following standard observations for each trial are suggested:

Count of passing vehicles

Time of wait

Driver characteristics⁴: apparent age, apparent sex, apparent ethnicity, age, sex, ethnicity, hitched before?

Vehicle characteristics⁵: manufacturer, model, apparent age, type, age

Number of occupants

Further, the specific appearance of the

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