Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Do you pickup hitchikers?

Recently I passed a couple girls along the road. As I went by, I noticed 2 guys, backpacks, and a big dog in the bushes. The whole crowd was pretty scruffy looking.

The best one, though, was during the Nam era ago when a friend and I were heading way out in the desert for a weekend of camping and shooting at nothing in particular. My car was a rolling armory with rifles, pistols, and enough ammo to take Afghanistan. My friend had just got out of the Marines. He was 6'4" and had a big bushy beard.
We picked up a couple real scruffy road bums. They hopped in the car and I took off. Then they started looking around the car at all the weaponry. Plus, my friend was fiddling with a switchblade. After a few miles one of them had the nerve to ask if we were going hunting. My friend smiled, flicked his knife and said yes, but it was different for him this trip. All he'd hunted the last couple years was people. Next time we stopped for a drink, they headed down the road at a very fast walk.

Early one morning out in West TX I spotted a white haired old man wearing khakis, walking down the edge of the highway about 25 miles out of Big Springs. He was holding his arm and bent over like he was in pain. This being a cotton farming area, I figured his was a farmer that had injured himself out in the fields. So I picked him up.

Sure enough, he had a dislocated shoulder and was in pain. I told him I would take him to the hospital in town. He nodded OK. In a little bit, he looked at me and said that his sister had done this to him. I said I�m sorry; I hate family problems like that. Then he said, She had her boyfriends do this to me. Again I said I�m sorry, I hate it when family acts like that. Then he looked at me and said �Your one of her boyfriends, come to finish the job aren�t you!�

That is when I realized that he did need a hospital, but not the community hospital. So I told him No, I was not one of his sisters boyfriends, I was trying to help him escape his sister. That calmed him a little bit, and I asked him if he was a veteran and knew how to fight if we needed too. He said he was a veteran. Big Springs, TX at that time had both a Texas State Mental Institution and a VA Hospital that handled mental patients, so I headed for the VA and pulled up to the emergency door. As I helped the old man in the door, the reception nurse spotted us, recognized the old man as an escaped patient, and was calling for security and straight jackets. They said he was one of the more violent patients they had and escaped by breaking out an office window on one of the upper floors and jumping.

No, I don�t pickup hitch hikers anymore.

It's against the law here. I can see why after all the bad stories. The cops just outlawed it period. Saves them a lot of paperwork.

Now that everybody and his dog has a cel phone I very rarely see a hitcher. I have and will stop for someone that has trouble, breakdown or something. Somehow I just seem to be able to see it in their face. Kind of a lost, Lord what am I going to do now look.

So far I have been lucky and always guessed right.

Just a cmmon bum walking the roads, no I don't stop for.

BCR

I have picked up few hitchhikers, and not for years now, just don't see them very often.
I do stop if looks like anyone needs help, changed a flat last night for an older couple as a matter of fact. But I always have a 45 tucked.
Stupidity is what can get you gone. I very much pay attention to my surroundings IF I stop for help these days. Especially so if after dark. I've been known to call in to Sheriffs after dark to tell them I"M stopping to help... xyz location.. amazing a deputy almost always shows up shortly....

Anymore, only if I recognize them as being someone local.

I have stopped and offered assistance and/or a ride to folks that I didn't recognize but appeared to be having car trouble. As often as not they'll say thanks but decline being just as wary of a stranger offering help.

I recall a news story from back in the mid-60's about a couple of young high school age girls hitching rides along a busy street in Chicago. Once they were in the car they would tell the driver to either cough up some money or else they would start hollering rape.

Eventually they were caught but no telling how many men they had sweating bullets and emptying their billfolds fearing all the probable repercussions of such a charge, regardless if false or not.

it can be a long way from nowhere out here and getting a ride could be the difference between life and death. I have no problem giving them a lift to the next town, usually in the back of the pickup. If they really need a ride most are just greatful for the lift.

I've come out on the road miles from my truck, dirty, wet,armed and scruffy looking after a long day of hunting and was thankful for any ride I could get.

Just the dead ones if they fit in the trunk.

I'll thumb a ride along whitewater river routes, back to the put-in. I have no problem, in such an area, picking up a guy wearing a wetsuit, Tevas, and a PFD. I'm talking about areas where the road generally parallels a popular river.

I've done the same in popular hiking or backpacking areas, but that really depends on the location.

Back in the late 80s (before cell phones) a friend was driving through New Orleans on the way to work, very early a.m. and came upon a naked, running, screaming woman on the expressway. Stopped to assist and pick her up, brought her to the hospital, cops came and arrested him for rape and other charges. Took a lot to work through that. So much for being the good guy.

As per a few others, not if my wife is with me and I, too am a rather big boy with a intimidating look and voice, not by intention, just is. As well, I take my carry piece, whatever it is, and put on in my left hip where I can grab it away from the possible groping of a hitchhikers hands if needed. I also play Gospel Music while travelling and witness to and / or pray for whomever I pick up and sometimes help 'em out a little if I sense a real need. I figure that is someone is going to pick up a bad guy, it best be someone prepared for such and not an easy victim. Also best if we can get some truth out there and be the messenger of Gods TRULY good news of forgiveness and hope. If I die spreading the good news of the Gospel, so be it. It's all good, no fear of such.

Pretty women hitch hikers are setting you up to be their mark of some kind, or they are simply hookers.

not in the last 35 years.

Funny, I pickup and hitch in WW areas myself, and this was the first thing I thought of.

Ditto for when I was in CO, and a popular "frontcountry" ski route had start/end points on 550.

Heck, I'll pull over for folks walking, not hitching, if there's a stranded vehicle on the side. Of course I'll tell them there's a child seat in the passenger side, so they'll have to ride in the back of the PU, under the shell. Every single one has been gracious so far.

Scott

Only once about 20 years ago. I was near the Seabee base in MS and saw 4 young guys on the side of I-10 at night. As I drove by I realized they were young Navy and stranded. I turned around at the next exit and when I got to them several minutes later they were still sitting there. I drove a Supra at the time (2 door) and I was loaded down with stuff for some reason (can't recall) but only had room for one. This was pre cell phones. I rolled up and asked if ONE of them would like a ride to the next exit to use a pay phone. They looked scared out of their minds. Not sure why, I was and am a pretty unimposing fellow if I do say so myself. They were not about to leave each other. Somehow all FOUR of them piled into my car and I drove them to a phone and waited for them to make a call and then drove them back to their car to wait on whatever helped they called. It was a sight.
Had never done it prior and haven't since.
It would have to be a very very rare set of circumstances (that I can't imagine right now) that would have me picking up someone today. I have a family that relies on me to show up alive everyday.

so far just locals but have pulled over in winter and let a guy stuck in the ditch warm up in my truck while he waited for a wrecker to show up and pull him out....bout -20 that day and his vehicle was dead and cold....

been picked up once cause i was in the ditch and walking back to town and once by some hunters cause i managed to get turned around in the bottom of a coulee and wound up on the wrong ridge, that was an oh chit moment realizing your looking at the wrong road in front of yah and turn around to see your truck parked straight away from yah on the other ridge some other hunters gave me a ride bout half way since they were headed in that direction anyway....

Only Fisherman along the rivers I fish, almost always wearing waders and carrying a Rod or two.

yep i do and have picked up some pretty rough lookin customers on occasion

never a hiccup, course i've been prepared for one a few times

i've hitched myself when i had hair halfway down my back at -50 windchill

those memories last


course the wife knows there'd be hell to pay if she gives anyone she doesn't know a ride

if she's concerned for them she can always call me

Did that one night on I-90 Coming off Snoqualmie Pass picked up a little Blond who was broke down in a storm. At the time I was driving a bull rig with about sixty head of cattle going to a feed lot in just south of Auburn and she was happy as hell that I picked her up as she was a nurse at a hospital I dropped her off at a McDonald's so she get to a phone and call for help.

With that said, No I don't pick up hitchhikers unless it's an exceptional case or unless I know them.

A well-known guide here in AK had a hitcher pull a knife on him in an attempted truck-jacking. Jacker expired from one in the chest from a still-shoulder-holstered handgun. That was quite a while ago.

I have picked up quite a few over the years...