The Dangers of Hitching: Passive, Active and Ride Sharing

» GerardVL - Nice analysis, Bernd. Once again, I'm with you for a long part o

Nice analysis, Bernd. Once again, I'm with you for a long part of the way. However, I'm not too sure that the power of judgement by the active hitcher is exercised to such an effect that drivers that might pose a risk will be avoided. I don't have too much confidence in the possibility to recognise possibly dangerous people from their appearance. It would be possible, I guess, to hitch quite safe by only asking and accepting rides from cars where the composition of occupants satisfies certain criteria. The risk for a hitching girl to be sexually harrassed is likely to be smaller if the driver is a woman (and I guess that's true also for male hitchers..). Also, families with kids pose a smaller threat for robbing or murdering,I guess. But personnally I don't want to limit myself to couples, families, and female drivers. Firstly, this limitation can reduce progress: I guess in about 80 per cent of my rides, I got the rides from a single man or a couple of men. Secondly, and more importantly, this would mean less fun. When I can choose between a couple of energetic guys my age and a rock-solid middle-aged dull couple in a Volvo, I will choose for waht is likely to give the best fun, not what is likely to be most safe and most boring. (And I won't consider myself a thrill-seeker, I just accept a small risk in return for the joy of hitching.) So, in conclusion, active hitching can be safe, but I guess most hitchers don't restrict themselves enough to be without risk.

As far as ride-sharing is concerned, my gut feeling would be that it is safer than `normal' active hitching. My assumption would be that a lot of possibly dangerous people don't have the type of personality to enlist in a ride-sharing agency, so will never find out if the identification procedure can be circumvented.

Gerard van Leeuwen

-- posted by GerardVL

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» The_Thumb - A you're marvelous Gerard. You can always catch the things I squ

A you're marvelous Gerard. You can always catch the things I squeezed out of an article by forcing it down to 1000 words :-). I wish more people would drop in and share some criticism. The articles are getting about 20-50 visitors a day, so someone's reading, but they're not very critical. I have to say something really stupid to get a few people irritated by my mistakes maybe :-).

But on to your point. Yes, I agree wholeheartedly. In fact I said to Michel in a previous discussion much the same thing. He suggested the smart hitchers were those that weren't buried in ditches by the side of the road. I expressed my lack of faith in our ability to judge character so quickly. The best killers will be just those that pass all your tests!

Couple that with our confessed interest in interesting people, and the risk even goes upo! not down!

But still, completely aside from the power of choice there's a simple statistical fact at work. We've argued that random crime is no more likely to afflict the hitcher than anyone else. At least the German police argued it, and I tend to side with them. A lot of people get killed by random violence in the strangest of places.

The premeditated crime is different. But even if the crim is premeditated, we can disregard those with preselected victims. If someone plans to murder their mother, their not going to kill you when hitching.

That leaves the premeditated crimes with no preselected victim. Now imagine one of these criminals (or a car full of them, they come in groups too) is joyriding, wondering how to express their criminal urge, be it robbery, rape, murder or all of the above. If they see you by the side of the road, their minds will be made up fairly quickly ...

Now if I ask people at a service station, I'm soliciting from a much smaller group of people, those that stopped for petrol or a coffee or something. Many just drive by on the motorway without ever seeing me.

Am I right in suggesting then that the chance of a premeditating criminal driving by, is higher than the chance
of one driving by and choosing to fill up right now?

If not, then the active soliciting is safer by mere virtue of that fact.

Now in practice I have to confess, it probably makes litte difference, I ask the wilder people anyhow not least of all because their more likely to give me a ride, and a more entertaining ride at that. But then I'm not hung up about the risks. I walk through some of the reasoning mainly for people that are, trying to present a thesis that suggests at least taht hitch-hiking needn't be any more dangerous than ride-sharing. To attack what I see as the subconscious view in the majority, that it is magnitudes riskier, that good girls go through the ride sharing agencies basically, and only the suicidal will hitch.

Even if in the end hitching is more dangerous, I hope that some people will see that it needn't be much more so.

As far as premeditated murderes using ride-sharing agencies goes and skirting the ID rules, I imagine you're perfectly right. By the very same reasoning I've applied here! Simply because to know how easy it is to skirt the rules, you have to have some experience, so you have to have used a ride-sharing agency. People with experience are a subset of the majority, and I think that the chances of a person falling within the two sets (premeditating criminals) and (ride-share drivers) is smaller than the chance of their falling within just one of these sets (unless we're suggesting ride shareers are more than averagely insane :-).

Just out of the blue, I have a wonderful snippet of data for you Gerard, that I'll work into an article when I find more of the same. The NSW police report for one year that:

Suspect and victim were related in 41% of homicide cases. In 38% of cases, the suspect was a friend or acquaintance of the victim, and in 17% of cases, suspect and victim were strangers.

Males were most likely to be killed by an acquaintance, while females were most likely to be killed by a family member.

More women experienced physical violence by a current or previous partner than from strangers or other men known to them (such as a friend or relative).

Food for thought ...

Bernd Wechner

The Suite's Roving

Hitch-Hiking
Editor

-- posted by The_Thumb

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