Hitchhiking

            Why this topic? Well, just a few days ago my cousin from Florida and I where discussing football. Oddly he is a Packer fan, but lives in Florida. I am of course a Vikings fan, and we all know how competitive football watchers are about their teams especially when it comes to the Packers vs. the Vikings. We came into an argument on what team is going to win this upcoming game. Soon enough he tells me that the only way this will be resolved is if I go to Florida. Well being as broke as I am there is no way I can afford a round trip, or road trip for that matter to Florida, unless I were to hitchhike.

            Obviously I’m not going to hitchhike, I would be way to frightened to get picked up by a stranger, especially after watching T.V. shows about people getting murdered by hitchhikers. This made me wonder about hitchhiking, and if it is even legal. Interesting enough there are very few places where there are laws to restrict hitchhiking. Manly the laws are that you cannot hitchhike on Interstates, Motorways, or on the Autobahn. Other than that you can basically get away with it. This surprised me since there are so many recordings of people getting killed after picking up a hitchhiker. We may see it every once in awhile, but not to often around these parts.

Netherlands area for hitchhikers

            In some countries hitchhiking is actually encouraged. For example in the Netherlands they have designated signs showing where you can sit and be picked up by passing drivers. So in the Netherlands they don’t see it as dangerous. In the United Kingdom college students actually play this “game” called Jailbreak. This is usually played during the summer months or during vacation time. Well the object of the game is to see who can get the farthest away from the school without spending any money on transportation. So in most cases they would hitchhike. Well how do you inform people that you want to be picked up.

            In most cases to show that you are hitchhiking you would hold your thumb up in the air. Well there are a few ways to show that you want to be picked up other then the good ol’ thumb trick. For example some ladies would pull their skirt up on one side to show off their legs, another is waving money in the air, in the United Kingdom they hold their index finger up in the air, or even just holding up a sign to where it is you want to go. So before you decided to hitchhike outside of the United States you should research the different methods or laws that there are for that location.