I don't have much to say on hitchhiking itself, but it strikes me as another manifestation of the climate of fear we have in the US these days - violent crime o

I don't have much to say on hitchhiking itself, but it strikes me as another manifestation of the climate of fear we have in the US these days - violent crime of all sorts is way down, but we act far more afraid than we did even when it was much higher. To the point that our paranoia hurts us more than the crime did. Even worse is how it can be self-perpetuating in situations like this - because hitching is so stigmatized, much fewer normal people are doing it on both sides, making the chances of getting somebody crazy higher.