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Hitching Down Under: Still a Very Happening ThingRead the article this discussion is about
This archived discussion is "read only".
» SashaN - Dear Bernd Wenchner, It seem the "Ass-Holes" weren't the only Dear Bernd Wenchner,It seem the "Ass-Holes" weren't the only ones punning if the last line of your essay is to be believed Your site interested me intitailly because it seemed to have some features desirable to my readers. I'm also a Suite 101 contributing ed. (the Study Abroad site). I gear my pages toward student travelers. A group of individuals that need cheap ways to get arround. I hope you won't mind if I link to your page from time-to-time. While I began reading your site for purely selfish reasons, I was hooked by your colorful and humorous essay. I must also admit to a facination with your home land of Austrailia ( I hope to finish my own Study Abroad exsperiences at an Australian University). It's nice to know that Austrailians are kind to hitch-hikes (excepting a mad-man or two).
-- posted by SashaN » The_Thumb - Thanks for the feedback Sasha, it´s always nice to hear from som Thanks for the feedback Sasha, it´s always nice to hear from someone out there. One of the topics on my agenda (and it´s a loose agenda) is to compile a reasonable statistical model for the risk involved in hitching. I may write an article on it some time, the idea is simple, just to relate reported crimes, and a projection of actual crimes related to hitching with crimes in our day to day lives and other risks, projected on some frequency axis (travelled kilometers or days say). Much projection and guesswork, though coupled with hard data it would at least provide a hint as to the risk, and answer for me, the question "Am I naively underestimating the risk involved, and are the scare-mongers right?". SOmething I don´t believe right now, but I can hardly rule it out. I do hear stories of incidents from time to time after all ...I´ve encountered two american hitchers on the net thus far, one is ardently hitching now and compiling a guide to hitching the states, and the other wrote a book as well, and is about 60 years of age. The latter book I reviews earlier (Innocence Abroad) and the former I´ll review as soon as I can ... it´s not exactly well set out right now, and I´m hard pressed for on-line time (plenty of on-road time instead :-).
-- posted by The_Thumb » Traveller - Are you serious Bernd? The data to obtain would be almost
Are we not bombarded with enough data and statistics, to look at another hyperthetical theory? No, us hitcher-hikers will take to the road ignoring the risks that are of course there.... And those "qui pensent trop" about the risks, will not stick out their thumb for a ride with a stranger. For us though, that is what the adventure of travel is all about. Life in a way. If we don't take risks, we don't move on.
-- posted by Traveller » The_Thumb - Yep, I´m serious. I think you´re overestimating the size of the Yep, I´m serious. I think you´re overestimating the size of the task though. I don´t expect to have anything that will prove you have 12.34% chance of being robbed, a 5.32% chance of being raped and a 2.12% chance of being murdered for every 1,000 kilometres you hitch.But it should be pretty easy with a few crude figures and credible estimates (with upper and lower limits), to determine with some credibility, if you are in fact more likely to die while hitching that you are while flying, taking the train or driving the car or if its much of a muchness. You´re right of course though when you describe hitchers´indifference to the question. Probably why I´ve hitched so many years and only now though of collecting some data. We´ve already made up our minds that the risk is one worth running, and the returns worth our while. I guess the idea comes to me because I have a lot of good friends that don´t hitch, because they see it as too dangerous. I have a lot of good chats with them, and the question of how risky it is often comes up. I´ve always felt it a moot point, but on reflection I think you can get a rough idea with a little footwork. The more footwork the less rough the idea, though the best you can do will still be pretty rough :-). But pretty rough is enough, like I said, to put things into perspective for a lot of people (good friends of mine whose views I care about included) that are swayed by conservative propaganda and a scare mongering press that emphasises interesting stories over mundane. I have some clues already. As far as I know the road toll in USA is in the order of 250 people a day. Very few people ever pondered that in America (it´s too mundane after all), but they all dwell on the risk of hitching (much more interesting). 250 people a day is a damned lot of people every year (about 100,000, a decent city). I have a gut feel that smoking related diseases take even more people out, and so on. I know how many km the Americans drive in a year already (it´s in any decent book on road stats, I looked once already :-). If I can find out how many hitchers were murdered in a year, and estimate how many hitchers there were and how far they went (at least 1 hitcher, went 1 mile, and probably not more than 1 million travelling 1 million miles :-). Now the stats need only be available for one state, or one country, it doesn´t matter much, I´m looking for a peek into objectivity that´s all. I´d just ask the police for starters, and scan some CD newspaper datapbases for reports, I expect the number to be small enough to treat each individual case by hand, there aren´t 250 hitcher´s disappearing every day. And I do see merit in it. I don´t like the conservative prats that ban everything around us, and they´ve banned hitching in places already, arguing mainly that it´s a public nuissance due to the danger. The conservatives like numbers, and fire´s best fought with fire I guess. In the mean time, you, and I, and other carefree souls not too fussed with numbers and stats, but rather enamoured in the adventure of life, will continue to hitch. It might well take me a long long time to get these numbers if at all, it´s not on the top of my long list of priorities, just a nice idea.
P.S. Oops, previewing this it looks like an article already. Just goes to show what you can do when you´re a jobless bum, sitting in a computer lab, with no access to your emails (telnet won´t go and hotmail is working at about 1 bit per hour for some reason) and nothing better to do with yourself ... :-). Will hitch back to Switzerland soon ... -- posted by The_Thumb » Traveller - A sort of.... The Roughly Guide to the rough chances of you g A sort of....The Roughly Guide to the rough chances of you getting roughed up while roughing it on the road then Bernd.
-- posted by Traveller » The_Thumb - You´re not sold on the idea? :-). <a href="http://www.aitec.e You´re not sold on the idea? :-).
-- posted by The_Thumb » SashaN - Michel & Bernard, Michel thanks for the message to my Study Michel & Bernard,
Now I must interject a few comments reguarding Bernard's idea for a statistical analysis of the safety of hitching: I can be done. IN fact similar modeling occures everyday in the form of weather reprts, opionion polling, etc... Of course very few people can understand the raw data. My consern for Benard isn't that the task is impossible, rather- why do it? A simple comparision between stats. that are already available seems to be much easier to gather and read. Bernard, before you give up time job hunting, or working on-line for this project, you might want to consider the whys and what fors.
-- posted by SashaN » The_Thumb - Ha, ha, you guys crack me up :-). I never suggested a serious pr Ha, ha, you guys crack me up :-). I never suggested a serious project or giving up any time for it, just an idea.All I´m thinking of is a simple comparison of stats that are already available. I´m not going to go out and count bodies after all, or interview people for that matter. But I think you´ll find the stats are not quite that easy to gather, and even less easy to read, and need in order to be compared to be cast onto a single axis, in which form I have never seen hitching data (and I´ve seen buckets of data, alas :-). By which I mean you can´t compare the simple number of road deaths with the number of hitching deaths (even if and when you do find the latter). It´s meaningless unless you know how many people were hitch-hiking and how many were driving. You have to compare deaths per travelled kilometer or deaths per traveller, or deaths per whatever, some meaningful denominator to express risk ... That involves some guesswork. The road toll is usually reduced to a figure in deaths per travelled kilometer for example, but we have a good idea of how many kilometers people travel (I think in most countries cars have their odometers checked and recorded every year or so), but this is where the guesswork comes in. I´d be the last one to waste any time and energy on something that´s already adequately available ... If you have some stats that are easily gathered and read and actually mean something by all means share them with me. Otherwise, if and when I find myself in a huge library with loads of easily gathered and read data and some time on my hands, which may be this year, or next, or the next, or the next, or ... I may do it :-). It may even be tomorrow, half the time I don´t know where I am :-). In the mean time it´s an idea I like.
-- posted by The_Thumb » GerardVL - Hi, a small note to show Bernd that hitch-hike mailing list s Hi,a small note to show Bernd that hitch-hike mailing list subscribers are reading these pages. I read a newspaper article once that you may find interesting as it deals with traffic accidents and ride sharing. A French ride sharing agency announced last year that they had mediated in rides over such a total distance that statistically one would have expected several (I do not recall the number) fatal traffic accidents. In fact, there had not been any fatalities. The agency used this fact to try and pull new drivers to do ride sharing. The agency explained the fact by stating that having a passenger would make drivers less careless and the passenger could help the driver stay awake and fresh. If these are true causes, these causes will also pertain to true hitchers. (Of course it can also be that the type of driver that does ride sharing is by nature a much safer driver than average.) I guess that for hitchers there is indeed a different, probably smaller, risk of getting killed in a road accident than average. This might, in some countries at least, outweigh the risk of becoming victim of a crime while hitching. Sorry to have further complicated matters, Gerard van Leeuwen. -- posted by GerardVL » The_Thumb - Gerard, that doesn´t complicate matter for me at all, in fact it Gerard, that doesn´t complicate matter for me at all, in fact it´s wonderfult o hear. By which I mean, only that it´s something I´d not thought about, something that warrants some thought and finally, I´d love to see a copy of the article. That´s precisely the sort of stuff I like to scan in when I can and add tomy Hitching Resources Page, and keep in my folder of clippings and things ... Do let me know if you have a copy, and/or if I can get one from you, or even a firm reference to trace it with some day.
-- posted by The_Thumb
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. I've never hitched myself as our American Roads are considered too dangerous. Many States have even out lawed the road-side "thumbers (used to be able to hitch by sticking out your thumb, which ment that markers and cardboard could be left at home). Sometimes I think that the politicians have simply watched one too many horror shows, they forget there are far riskier things.
