Poll: Ever pick up a hitchhiker?

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tippy2k2

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I did something I never thought I'd do a few days ago...

I picked up a hitchhiker

Alright, that's not 100% true. The man in question came over to my car as I was pulling out of the apartment, knocked on my window, and asked if I would be willing to drive him a few blocks down the road to the bank. I was going that direction, the guy was older (in a Minnesota winter) and I have actually talked to him a few times (he lives in the area).

That's probably the closest I'm ever going to get to giving someone a ride (you know, unless I know them obviously) but I am curious about others. Have you ever picked up a hitchhiker (or even just someone looking for a ride like my guy)? Would you ever consider it? Did you once and it turns out he was an escaped convict that was planning on eating your brain if it wasn't for the helpful gas station clerk recognizing him? Do tell!
 

Caiphus

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I've never done it. I feel a little bit bad if I drive past them, especially if it's late at night and there aren't many cars on the road.
It's possibly an irrational fear, but I'm just a little bit too scared to let one or more total strangers into my car.
 

Dirty Hipsters

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I picked up a kid once and gave him a ride home about 5 years back. He looked to be about 14 and was walking a bike up a steep hill and I noticed that the bike chain was dragging along the ground. I pulled up, he told me that his bike chain broke and that he lived about 4 miles away. I put his bike in the back of my Jeep gave him a ride, turned out he lived about 2 minutes from my house. It wasn't really a big deal, I've seen him a few times since then, and I think he's in college now.
 

tippy2k2

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Caiphus said:
I've never done it. I feel a little bit bad if I drive past them, especially if it's late at night and there aren't many cars on the road.
It's possibly an irrational fear, but I'm just a little bit too scared to let one or more total strangers into my car.
I get what you mean. It's kind of irrational but even with my new old man friend, I was still wary of him. I happened to have had my phone out (in fact, that's what gave him the time he needed to knock on my window; had I not checked my phone, I'd have been out the driveway before he walked over) and instead of putting it away as I normally would have, I kept the phone in my hand while driving. It wasn't on or anything but if for some reason, he spent all this time gaining my trust to steal the $14 I had in my pocket, I had the phone out to hit the Emergency Dial.

Too many horror movies I bet!
 

San Martin

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I've hitch-hiked, and having so far neither murdered anyone nor been murdered myself, I would pick up a hitch-hiker if the chance arose. It's true that I've been picked up by drug dealers and illegal hunters, but they were nice enough.
 

Lilani

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No, and I probably never will. I'm certain the vast majority of them are good people, and I feel bad when I pass by, but being a female I simply will not do it.
 

Dirty Hipsters

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tippy2k2 said:
Caiphus said:
I've never done it. I feel a little bit bad if I drive past them, especially if it's late at night and there aren't many cars on the road.
It's possibly an irrational fear, but I'm just a little bit too scared to let one or more total strangers into my car.
I get what you mean. It's kind of irrational but even with my new old man friend, I was still wary of him. I happened to have had my phone out (in fact, that's what gave him the time he needed to knock on my window; had I not checked my phone, I'd have been out the driveway before he walked over) and instead of putting it away as I normally would have, I kept the phone in my hand while driving. It wasn't on or anything but if for some reason, he spent all this time gaining my trust to steal the $14 I had in my pocket, I had the phone out to hit the Emergency Dial.

Too many horror movies I bet!
How exactly was your phone supposed to help you? It he tries to physically attack you it's unlikely you'll be able to call the police, and even if you do, so what? The police don't teleport to you, the guy only needs a few seconds to beat your ass and rob you and police response time is a few minutes at least.

People get this weird false sense of security from knowing that they can call for help at any moment, but it's not like emergency services are going to get to you immediately when you need them.
 

tippy2k2

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Dirty Hipsters said:
How exactly was your phone supposed to help you? It he tries to physically attack you it's unlikely you'll be able to call the police, and even if you do, so what? The police don't teleport to you, the guy only needs a few seconds to beat your ass and rob you and police response time is a few minutes at least.

People get this weird false sense of security from knowing that they can call for help at any moment, but it's not like emergency services are going to get to you immediately when you need them.
I wasn't terribly worried about robbery but I did have my phone out for the panic button if I was physically assaulted and needed medical assistance. I don't have anything worth stealing so I wasn't expecting police help (like you said, it'd be multiple minutes at best for them to show up); I basically had it out if the guy pulled and knife and jabbed it into my gut or something...
 

Dirty Hipsters

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tippy2k2 said:
Dirty Hipsters said:
How exactly was your phone supposed to help you? It he tries to physically attack you it's unlikely you'll be able to call the police, and even if you do, so what? The police don't teleport to you, the guy only needs a few seconds to beat your ass and rob you and police response time is a few minutes at least.

People get this weird false sense of security from knowing that they can call for help at any moment, but it's not like emergency services are going to get to you immediately when you need them.
I wasn't terribly worried about robbery but I did have my phone out for the panic button if I was physically assaulted and needed medical assistance. I don't have anything worth stealing so I wasn't expecting police help (like you said, it'd be multiple minutes at best for them to show up); I basically had it out if the guy pulled and knife and jabbed it into my gut or something...
What if the guy stabbed you and took your phone?
 

tippy2k2

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Dirty Hipsters said:
What if the guy stabbed you and took your phone?
Then I'd have been fucked and this would have been a very different thread :D

Basically, if I had any (realistic) thoughts that he would attack me, I would have told him No. But like I said in the OP, he's a man that I've seen around the neighborhood and I had even talked to him once or twice. I kept the phone out because there wasn't really any reason not to given the situation. I suppose there's always a risk when you're giving anyone a lift but I felt perfectly safe giving him a lift.
 

Dirty Hipsters

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tippy2k2 said:
Dirty Hipsters said:
What if the guy stabbed you and took your phone?
Then I'd have been fucked and this would have been a very different thread :D

Basically, if I had any (realistic) thoughts that he would attack me, I would have told him No. But like I said in the OP, he's a man that I've seen around the neighborhood and I had even talked to him once or twice. I kept the phone out because there wasn't really any reason not to given the situation. I suppose there's always a risk when you're giving anyone a lift but I felt perfectly safe giving him a lift.
No, I understand why you gave him the ride and that you felt safe doing it, I'm just pointing out that it's a little silly that having your cellphone out and on hand made you feel safer. I think it's important to question certain behaviors and the thought processes behind them that we may not be aware of. We as a society are really over-reliant on technology and we put a little too much faith in it at times. That's what I was getting at, I didn't mean that you shouldn't have given him a ride, or that you should have felt threatened by him.
 

tippy2k2

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Dirty Hipsters said:
No, I understand why you gave him the ride and that you felt safe doing it, I'm just pointing out that it's a little silly that having your cellphone out and on hand made you feel safer. I think it's important to question certain behaviors and the thought processes behind them that we may not be aware of. We as a society are really over-reliant on technology and we put a little too much faith in it at times. That's what I was getting at, I didn't mean that you shouldn't have given him a ride, or that you should have felt threatened by him.
Ah. Fair enough :)

Yeah, if it was someone I didn't have complete confidence in trusting, I wouldn't pick them up but I get what you're saying. "I'll just have my cell phone out if I pick up that trusty lookin fella on the side of the road with the chainsaw!" is probably not the best thing to take away from this thread...
 

Hairless Mammoth

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The only person I've ever picked up was a guy I worked with and knew well enough he wouldn't shank me in an attempted murder-suicide. He was walking along the road, carrying a gas can, towards work and I was already going there. So I stopped and asked what he was doing. When I found out he ran out of gas and got a ride home the previous night, I gave him a ride there. If I didn't, he would have been walking with a heavy jug of flammable juice for probably another 30 minutes.

Still, use good judgement and be vigilant with your surroundings. Keep you car in gear and have a clear path to go, if you do stop to see if someone needs help. You also only need to crack the window to clearly hear someone talk.
 

Veldel

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No I can't drive but one time while walking to work in a blizzard a car pulled to the side and gave me a ride.

It was a family who was passing by it looked like they where kind people.
 

mysecondlife

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I picked up a man, woman and a child few years back because their car had flat tire in an off-road forest. I probably wouldn't have done it if it wasn't for the kid. I dropped them off at the nearest tire retailer. They offered to pay for the ride but I declined.
 

TheYellowCellPhone

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Back off guys, I actually have something to contribute.

It was Friday, I only had two classes that day: one that ended at 9:30, and the other that started at 1:30. Obviously that gives me a lot of down time in between, so I usually took that time to study and pal around with some friends I had in the 9:30 class, then leave for lunch around eleven. I was walking to the parking lot to get to my car, and large black man at the bus stop on campus (the bus stop is in between the building of my 9:30 class and the lot I parked at) asked me the location of a gas station, because he didn't have his phone on him. Actually not the first time a random stranger has walked up to me on campus and asked to use my phone. I looked it up for him. The station was not within feasible walking distance, but it wasn't far either, maybe a five minute drive. That's when this middle-aged guy asked me to drive him to the gas station (of course, after introducing himself). I had around two hours until my last class and he seemed didn't seem like a malicious person, nothing tripped me off about him as being threatening. Talkative, middle-aged, spoke lightly, clearly tired, walking around on college campus, and overweight. I asked him some questions, all his responses didn't trip off warnings and he was not... I don't know... stretching for answers? He had a story and it made sense, all the details checked out and he wasn't hesitating like he was lying about it.

His car had broken down, and he dropped it off at a mechanic conveniently next to the gas station, then went to work... somehow. Can't remember the story, this was a bit of time ago. He saw a bus schedule that could take him to the gas station that lined up with the end of a third shift at work. Turned out, the bus took him to a different gas station (same name, same company) that was across the street from the the building I had my class in. He intended on walking into the college at the help desk and getting the bus schedule to the correct gas station, and flagged me down because I was literally on the way to the help desk. I easily believed I was the first person he ran into, since I left the study session early at an irregular time on an even more irregular day, Friday. Can't blame him for approaching me, felt bad for him, had nothing better to do, and he looked friendly enough.

Took him to the gas station, took closer to ten minutes. His car wasn't done, he didn't have his cell phone to have known it would've been done (again, that's why he initially asked me for the location of this station), so he pleaded me to drive him to a hospice care center.

Yeah, a hospice care center.

Turned out he was a pastor at a church not too far from the college, which is why he was rather easy to talk to. Don't remember the church, because the area I lived in, despite being northern Ohio and not in the Bible Belt, had literal dozens of churches within a ten minute drive. But I knew that church, it was sort of a halfway point between the college and where I live. He had a daughter who was born with a kidney problem and had to go through constant dialysis at the hospital to remain healthy. She happened to be going through a surgery to be helping her kidney problem in a few hours, and the guy was trying to get there after pulling off a third shift, which is why he couldn't wait for his car to be fixed. Apparently he had no other ride, since he didn't have a phone, and the person who was watching over his daughter while she worked (think it was a nanny) obviously couldn't drive him because she was caring for his daughter. So he asked me, obviously the nearest sucker whom he knew would drive him someplace, to take him to this hospice center like a half hour away.

Sure, I went along with it. He offered to pay me, but I didn't want it. He was clearly emotional when describing his daughter's illness and his distinct possibility of not being able to see her the day of her surgery, plus it really wasn't a burden on me besides the gas. He was a great passenger: talked to me a bit about religion, a bit about marching band when he saw my music books in the back of the car, a bit about his financial situation and how humiliating it was that he had to work third shift at some factory yet he still was stuck in the situation without a car. Of course, driving out of my way into a predominantly black neighborhood under the guidance of a guy I had just met an hour ago could have gone so badly, but as I said, everything he said was accompanied by an emotional reaction and there was obviously no hesitation to make me believe he was making shit up. Not only that, but he gave me his phone number if I needed compensation too. Plus, the hospice center was across the street from a church -- not the church he was a pastor at, mind, but a church nonetheless.

I dropped him off, said goodbye, and drove back to college with barely enough time to eat and get into class. Nothing bad came from it.

He might've been bullshitting me. Something about how he left the car and kind of... glanred at me as he walked into the buliding was really out of character for what I knew of him that previous half hour. I don't know if he wanted me to be around anymore, like he milked me of my uses and he was embarrassed I was there. I don't know. Because we exchanged numbers at some point in that adventure, he called me exactly once, the next day, asking to meet up with me in the parking lot of a shopping mall and compensate me, but I had to work that day and told him to call back. Not that I particularly wanted the money, I was just a little bit curious and wanted to meet him on different grounds than, you know, driving him to an unfamiliar neighborhood. He never called back, and I never called either. Something about how easily that situation could've gone wrong makes me want to wash my hands of the whole event and forget it happened. I would forget it, but I really liked that guy. Bugs me that I'm constantly conflicted over whether he is a nice guy who acted weird in a bad situation, or some sort of scuzzball that used me as a free chauffeur then disappeared. Super cool guy to talk to and all, but I wish I met him in a different way than him asking me to drive him to a location over half an hour away.

Best part, I can't even remember his name, nor the church he supposedly preached at. I have him in my phone contacts as Peter, but I swear his name was Steven.
 

FirstNameLastName

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I don't drive, but I'm sure I would never pick someone up unless I was absolutely sure they are no threat. And even then ...
I will probably mirror other statements in this thread, in that I do not believe being attacked by a hitch hiker is statistically likely. Yet even still, it is an unnecessary risk that I would not take.