Robert Thompson, popular culture expert and professor of media and culture at Syracuse University, believes three things are responsible.
“The interstate highway system took over as the principal route of long-distance travel, and hitchhiking was forbidden on these well-patrolled throughways,” Thompson said. “Law enforcement in many communities began taking a less casual approach to hitchhikers.” And finally, he said, “a generation of paranoid horror tales of what can happen if you hitchhike scared the bejesus out of most people who might otherwise have taken up this unique form of ad hoc carpooling.”
So where can you hitchhike? If Cody Smart is any indication, it’s still possible in America even if the glory days are gone. The article mentions Britain, Ireland, Scandinavia, New Zealand Chile, Argentina and China as countries where it’s still common and acceptable, but I’d add Japan to that list, too – it’s certainly not “common,” but Japanese people aren’t at all shy about picking up the stray hitcher if they aren’t too threatening (I’ll have to write about my hitchhiking adventures in Japan soon).
For more, check out digihitch, the internet’s apparent nexus of hitchhiking errata.
