Hitchhiking has died as a phenomenon in the US.

During my experience hitchhiking in the West coast region I asked a lot of questions of the drivers that picked me up. I often asked them, "Why did you pick up hitchhikers?", "Have you ever hitchhiked.", and "What advice do you have for me."

The most common answers that I received the why question were, "I need the karma" or "What goes around comes around." To the question of if the person giving me the ride had every hitchhiked themselves. I received almost only "yes" responses. I was picked up by almost exclusively white single males in their 40's to 50's. They had often hitchhiked in their youth during college or high school. That put most of these guys in the 60's and 70's during the heyday of hitchhiking culture. To my bid of advice, People always told me that they thought hitchhiking was dangerous. "It's not as safe as it used to be."

I blame the media for the fact that hitchhiking has gone out of mode. The fact of the matter is that people are scared. Hitchhiking used to be the preferred form of travel for artists, poets, students, and the free in spirit. Now the most common type of people that I see hitchhike are people that I probably would be scared of picking up. From the late 50's to the mid 70's hitchhiking was more common, safe, and successful. What I mean that more people could get rides, at least as far as I've been told.

Hitchhiking was the child a mass belief that everything was alright. Life was good as long as you believed it, basically the hippie mentality. There was an abundance of freedom and free thinking. I'm not saying that all things hippie are good but I do think that hitchhiking is a beautiful thing that has fallen by the wayside and is view as unsafe in last few years.

The main reason for the decline of hitchhiking is fear. People are scared to hitchhike and people are scared to give a hitcher a ride

I have learned from personal experience that if you are smart with who you take a ride from that this form of travel can be both enjoyable and very interesting.