General Chat

When I was young it was quite common to see people hitching lifts, especially along main routes between towns........Did you?

yes when i was 17 i used to hitch from shrewsbury to london scary wouldnt do it now

I used to do it all the time, when I lived in Cambridgeshire. Often it was the only way to get from village to village as the bus services round there were very poor. However, when the Cambridge rapist was doing his bit all that stopped and I used me bike.

i have never hitched a lift from anyone, and i never will! i have always told my kids to ring me if they cant get home. i have told them to take my roth rather than hitch a lift! its safer!

I've never hitched, but when I was about 15/16 I did accept lifts from strangers. The first time me and a friend were going to see a pop group and we missed our bus stop and knocked on someones door asking to borrow the phone to phone a taxi, it was just b4 xmas and they said that we would never get one so they drove us :-) The second time was also regarding the same pop group, me and another friend had been in London at the Albert Hall for a charity concert of all of Pete Watermans artists, we were in one of the boxes and the blokes sitting behind us (who were about 10 years older than us) offered us a lift home as they lived about 15 miles away from us. When I got home (at about midnight) and told my parents they went mad. This was about 18 years ago, but it makes me shiver to think what could have happened. Karen Ps Just remembered something else, only the other day me and My Mum were sitting at a bus stop and a bloke with a girl in the car pulled up and said that he was going into town and did we want a lift, it was probably all quite innocent but we declined and said that the bus would be along soon (the bus wasnt going to be along for another 30 mins but it was just abit too weird).

Yes, did it in London in the 1960s - must have been mad !! My mother would have killed me if she had found out. I'd missed the last bus home. Stella

No I never did

Yes I did Just once....When I was 17 and stupid, It was new years eve, Trafalgar Square and got lifted up by a stranger and dropped in to the fountain!! I lost my shoes and was soaked to the bone & couldnt find the friends I went with, and it was freezing. A stranger offered to take me home....He took me straight to my door. I will never forget that mans kindness. My dad would have killed me if he had found out though. Rosi

When I was in the army in 1959, we never thought twice about hitching home...........lorries would always stop for a serviceman then,as you say, a bit dodgy now.............in the early seventies, I often picked people up when I regularly drove London to Ipswich and back, one time I picked up a young couple that were hitching to Stonehenge.....Bob

I used to hitch hike all the time in the late70's/early 80's, before i was old enough to get a motorbike...we hardly ever had any buses.....so if i missed them....i'd just stick my thumb out.......and living out in the sticks 9 times out of 10 it would be someone i knew anyway. Tho, on a couple of occasions i did meet some strange blokes....who made me feel very uneasy....and i thought if they dont stop where i ask them to....i'm just gonna open the door and bale out......luckily they did stop..! I did, on one occasion, have a chap stop, when i was about 14 and ask if i wanted a lift. I was doing my evening paper round and it was dark and raining but i was only about 500 yards from home....i said i was ok but he kept trying to get me to get in....so i just ran off as fast as i could.....I was really scared then. Nick

When I was about twelve me and my mate often used to hitch lifts coming back from football match at Maine Road (Man City) one day a yellow Ford pulled up and took us home it Was Dave Wagstaffe who was my hero at that time for City , God I was so proud when he dropped me off outside my home. Davex

Like most of you say it was quite a regular thing years ago but today we are on another planet and certainly wouldnt advise anybody to hitch a lift or pick up any hitch hikers.

when i was 17, i had a fall from my motor bike and then couldnt get it started again. it was pouring down with rain, i had no money for the bus and so i started to hitch (i could hardly walk as i had hurt my leg in the fall) it was only 4 mile into town. luckily it was someone i knew that pulled up, but looking back how stupid was i? would never advise anyone to do it. tina x