One page guide to safe hitchhiking

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Revision as of 15:53, 28 April 2008 by Mabe (talk | contribs)
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Info

Hi, this should be a project page to collect and save content for safe hitchhiking. The aim of this project is to collect tips about safety by hitchhiking and produce a printable, readable, not boring .pdf file. Please feel free to edit and collect tips. - mabe

Also see Safety, and please do copy stuff back and forth.

How to

Structure

  • Introduction
    • I think it makes no sense to deny that hitchhiking is in all situations safe. The sooner people know that and think about it, the better they can react in bad situations. So in this paper we should mention this fact. link
    • I think there are 3 steps of situations which are dependent on the driver's actions and your reactions:
  1. Before you enter the car, how to know to enter, why not enter, driver might be very kind to you so no reason why not to enter
  2. Leave a driving car because you get a bad feeling and have recognized that the driver wants more that just give you a lift. link
  3. I think the 3rd step is the most worst case, what can I do when really somebody wants to kill me/ to rape me/ to steal my money! I am sure that in the most cases you will not recognize this situations so fast, because the driver was all the time very kind and funny to you. He builds up a friendly relationship to you. So I even believe that to get raped must not be in a car (you know the stories about raped family members).
    • Seems to be prostitute, get out information from [1]

Introduction

Just to remember, I think there is a double of more actions which are not in the news. These are just facts and make me really sad:

Some Idea of Introduction:

On earth there are actually more than 6 billion People living. It is not countable how many people still at the moment are active hitchhiking on the earth. Maybe it is 100, maybe it is an amount of about 2000 hitchhikers. Who knows, who cares, why should I be interested in it? You should be interested because it is for your safety. It is a fact that a hitchhiking lift could not be all the time that nice as you remember them. There is a small possibility to get in a situation where you have to handle and to act. In the following paper we have tried to collect tips/informations and useful stuff for Situations like that. We don't want to scare you. Hitchhiking is in most cases the most wonderful way of traveling. We want to make you strong and give you the power to react in bad situations. So please take the time to read this carefully and let us know if you have more tips or ideas.


1. Before you enter the car?

We don't want to give you here tricks about how hitchhiking works and how to do it. This would be too much. There is a lot of information written, mostly you can find it in the Internet. Here is a list of some useful pages:

  • hitchbase.com
  • abgefahren.hitchbase.com
  • digichitch.com
  • hitchwiki.org
  • liftershalte.info

We want to give you here reasons why not to enter a car even when it is raining, you have stood two hours in one place and your are pissed of because all the drivers before didn't want to take you and a car has stopped in front of you. The first talk with the driver is very important and shows you a lot if the driver wants you to take for some other reason with the car. You should never just jump into the car without making a little talk with the driver. During the talk you should go trough your checklist in your head like that: Where is the driver going? Which way he will he go through? Where you can leave the car to get maybe a second lift on a good place? Is the driver drunk? Is there more than one person in the car? Where can I put my stuff? Is the driver kind and helpful? Does it really make sense to go with the driver or maybe it's better just to stay? Should I write down the number plate from the car?

At the first time it is good to be at distance to the driver. You are in a better position. You don't have to take the first lift. When you feel uncomfortable about going with the driver just say NO. Another car will surely come. You can try to say NO in situations where you are sure to get another lift.

This all sounds really easy when you remember these hectic situations where you just jumped in because there have been a lot of cars around and the driver wants to start the car again. You should really learn to get cool and easy. There is no reason why to stress. The really best way for cool hitch hiking is to start from a petrol station or to get a lift as fast as possible to such a start point. On a petrol station the drivers are more relaxed and you can get really easy an overview.

2. Leaving a car?

The situation is there that you feel not comfortable anymore with the driver. The feeling says you better to leave the car. For leaving a car there could be different reasons like, the driver is drunken, the driver is not driving this direction he wanted to go, the driver is driving really fast and scary, the driver wants more than just give you a lift. In any way the reason why you have a strange feeling is not that important. Important is that you hear at that feeling and try to get out of the car. You should handle cool and overstanding, don't let the driver see that you are unsure. Simply say the driver to stop the car. A good stop for the car is a place like a petrol station, bus station something where you are not alone when you leave the car. You should train and try to leave a car on normal hitchhiking lifts. For the most people it is not that easy to lie in that way because before you did say some other aim where you want to go. You should not care about lying. When it seems to be that the driver don't want to stop at that place you have said it is time for you to handle in any way...

3. What to do in the worst case?

  • push the windscreen with your feet (It works at the top, in the center. No car driver wants this to happen.)
  • lighter and deodorant
  • pepper spray (please check the laws on this in the respective country)
  • throwing things out of the car
  • grab the steering wheel
  • pull the handbrake
  • have with you a "Help" sign and hold it to the window
  • let out a guffaw, use the element of surprise
  • pretend to have an epileptic fit
  • open the door during the ride and try to brake the door with your feeds (only belted up)
  • turn on the hazard lights / the flashing light / honk
  • be careful by jumping out of a truck; be aware of the height