OT: is hitchhiking legal or not (in US)

There is nothing in the federal law that prohibits hitchiking.

However, a lot of local agencies prohibit it for safety reas>Hi,

--- AntiSpam/harvest --- Remove X's to send email to me.

Here's some info on hitchhiking in the U.S.

I'm not aware of any state which specifically prohibits hitchhiking, but I've certainly seen signs on some of the busier freeways which prohibit pedestrians. I'm in Oregon, and see tons of people hiking along the roadways in the summertime.

I must admit, that generally speaking, hitchhikers are not well liked...

Chris

Most of the technicalities of specific laws have the intent of outright prohibiting hitchhiking, or so it seems.

Yeah, also broadly speaking, much of US population does not truly subscribe to the idea of "personal freedoms" although a lot of empty buzz floats around.

Frequently, so called freedoms are outright trampled on or at least attempted to be trampled at the slightest occasion. That's why a bunch of smart guys put so many specifically into law, the US. Constitution, some years ago, so that they cannot be taken away too easily, by a populus generally, and at heart, not subscribing to most of them.

This is nothing new to Americans, but many foreigners find it strange and somewhat conflicting to hear so much about US freedoms abroad, and find so many restrictions on these freedoms upon visiting US. Hitchhiking I think is an excellent example.

M.J.

US? Freedoms??? What freedoms??

And on the subject of hitchiking...

If the US would take only a small part of the money they waste on playing "world police"....and spend it on their own people for say..oh I don't know...a reasonable public transportation system, then hitchhiking would not even be needed....

-- Stephan

2003 Yamaha R6

kimi no koto omoidasu hi nante nai no wa kimi no koto wasureta toki ga nai kara

Yes and no. In Arizona there are signs near prisons saying, "Don't pick up hitchhikers" otherwise it's OK except on interstates/freeways where pedestrians are normally forbidden if it's obvious that you're non just a broke down motorist walking to a gas station or such. IOW, if you're wearing a backpack, expect to be stopped. In California it must also be illegal on interstates/ freeways because there are emergency call boxes every mile. On two lane roads most places require, like a bicycle, that you ride /walk IN THE DIRRECTION of traffic.

All that said Hitching is a dangerous business unless there is a nice wide shoulder on the road, plus you never know what kind of nut job is going to offer you a ride.

Bob Nixon, Chandler AZ

01 Sprint ST "RED" 55K miles

With all due respect Stephen, it's not that simple. What about outside of towns? Busses/Trains are not free and I'll bet the chances of a "safe" hitchhiked ride are an order of magnitude higher in Europe, which has nothing to due with any World policemen.

Bob Nixon, Chandler AZ

01 Sprint ST "RED" 55K miles

Of course they are not free, but they *exist*. Even out here in the middle of nowhere, where I live, there at the very least are busses connecting all the towns. And, it is one bus-ride away from the next train station which lets you go anywhere in europe. The only reason we actually don't have trains connecting the towns in my area is because of the mountains. If you go into the more flat-areas of germany even the smaller towns have train systems connecting them. I used to use them all the time when I was a kid to get around.

And on the matter of cost, while they are not free, they are not expensive either. Matter of fact, it costs magnitudes less than owning a car if you live in an area where you can really take advantage of it. My car, if I include fuel and insurance and payment, runs me 500 euros a month. A monthly train ticket that allows unlimited use of the train system runs 65 or so euros a month.

I don't understand why everyone in the US fights such a system so much. I remember when Florida was supposed to get a high-speed train system to connect all the major cities. It would have been wonderful! But the governor did a good job and making sure it wouldn't happen DESPITE the people having VOTED for it (gotta LOVE democracy at work here)!

The US would truly be the perfect place for this. You have huge, long distances that are perfect for those trains capable of going 200 miles per hour. Beats sitting in 70mph congested highway traffic, doesn't it?

You could reduce the distance between say Florida and New York, which is a common route for many people, to less than half the time it takes by car.

I just don't understand why it is not done.

-- Stephan

2003 Yamaha R6

kimi no koto omoidasu hi nante nai no wa kimi no koto wasureta toki ga nai kara

Not mention:

1.) Traffic laws (like hitchhiking) are usually STATE, not Federal laws. We don't have a national driver's license, national auto registrations, or national highway law standards.

2.) There are still miles of open space in the US where mass transit dosen't make any sense at all. Most urban areas have excellent mass transit systems, at the minimum busses.

If Americans use mass transit or not is a totally different story. In most urban areas it certainly is available.

Stephen, please don't choke on your anti-Americanism.

Quite the opposite, the miles of open space would be perfect for a track to go through connecting cities that are 10 hours away by car that could be less than half that distance by train.

Really?? Where is it available?? Save for a few select places such as New York, San Francisco...where else?

If you call the occasional bus "excellent mass transit system" please...give me a break...

-- Stephan

2003 Yamaha R6

kimi no koto omoidasu hi nante nai no wa kimi no koto wasureta toki ga nai kara

Note to Stephen:

Please refrain from supplying any constructive to Americans based on your experience. America is perfect just the way it is and anyone who says otherwise should move to North Korea or China. Just ask Timsy or Mike.

Have in mind Stephan that US is not a national state like most all countries in Europe, and the world. People here are not uniform in any way, and this causes various issues. There is tremendous heterogeneity in all aspects of human condition, and interaction

- various income levels, differing levels of education, norms of behaviour, personal hygiene, health levels, everything you can imagine. Now all of this is additionally amplified by differences in religion, race, creed, country of origin, cullture in general.

You cannot realistically expect such a un-uniform mixture of people to get along well and want to enthusiastically share public accomodations for prolonged periods of time. I suspect, this is, generally speaking, why public services like transportation do not get much support in US and as a rule do not work here.

M.J.

With all due respect, I have to somewhat disagree.

Having lived in the US long enough, having been to a whole bunch of states, knowing people from all over the various states, I've yet to see any significant difference.

Sure, you have your difference between notherners / southerners, differences between east coast, west coast, etc. But to me, those differences are no more significant than the difference between north / south germany. Nevermind north / south europe!

The same differences apply here in Europe as well. Income, education, mentality, language even (one difference you don't have nearly as significantly), culture, different governments between countries (again something you don't have), and so on.

I can basicaly come up with the identical list you have and a few more and many differences are even greater than in the US.

I suspect the fact that people wouldn't get along well might be part of that reason, I mean they can't even get along on the roads. But I don't think that differences between people are the reason. I think it's just a pure mentality issue. The same "I own the road and everyone else get out of my way" attidue I often noticed on the roads. I agree that an attitude like that isn't going to work well in a public system.

-- Stephan

2003 Yamaha R6

kimi no koto omoidasu hi nante nai no wa kimi no koto wasureta toki ga nai kara

Hahaha saddle!!

Doesn't that attidue go against "free speech" though or did that go down the drain already too?

-- Stephan

2003 Yamaha R6

kimi no koto omoidasu hi nante nai no wa kimi no koto wasureta toki ga nai kara

Disparities of income are much lesser in any European country, than in US, (aside post-communist countries as their economies, in transition, created much much income disparity). Disparity in education levels is far far lesser in Europe. Same can be said about many other aspects of life particularly regarding a population within a state (national state). Civility in Europe as a whole appears to be higher than in US, of course at times when Europeans are not at war with each other ;-) ....so go figure.

M.J.

While I would like to see more, there are excellent mass transit systems in at least these cities:

New York (and surrounding suburbs in NY, NJ and CT) Boston Cleveland Chicago Philadelphia Washington, DC (and surrounding suburbs) San Francisco (whole Bay Area)

and I believe in many other cities that I don't get to visit very often.

What we are really missing are high speed intercity trains. Cities in the US are generally further apart then in Europe and it has been said that we tend to prefer plane travel because of those larger distances. There are a number of places that are 100 to 200 miles apart where travel by high speed train would be just as fast as by plane when you add in all the time wasted at airports these days. I live about

150 miles from New York City and take the train all the time, but would really love to have a faster train like those in Japan or even parts of Europe such as France and Germany.

-- Vic Roberts Replace xxx with vdr in e-mail address.

Remember, it's illegal only if you're caught!

Al

If you can re-write that in a way that is actually readable (hint: paragraphs are a wonderful thing) I may actually bother reading it.

-- Stephan

2003 Yamaha R6

kimi no koto omoidasu hi nante nai no wa kimi no koto wasureta toki ga nai kara

I'm up for it!

Except that I already formed said opinion while I still lived in the US and it has nothing to do with my government =)

Oh yea, true...Europe is such a uniform place. When I walk through my local town I can hear 3 different languages spoken within 10 minutes from people with completely different cultural backgrounds.

Yup....

uniform indeed...

Yamaha R6!!!! =) And I *ride* it, not *drive* it! =)

Though..in this weather...I can't =( Ice & motorcycles don't mix all that well...

-- Stephan

2003 Yamaha R6

kimi no koto omoidasu hi nante nai no wa kimi no koto wasureta toki ga nai kara

OK, I was generalizing, if not exaggerating a bit, just to illustrate the ridiculous situation, nothing personal, Stephan.

European populus is far better educated than American, who basically have a fake public education system, but European education is not perfect and can instill certain agenda's in the minds of its recipients, for example support for the so called "welfare economics" "welfare state" which has its good and bad sides.

You are right, Stephan, but this peaceful civility is and was a result of heavy subsidies. Western Europe's welfare economics implemented after WWII, was a way of matching, in a democratic way, the social reforms that were taking place in Eastern Europe under Socialism/Communism. Europe was Cold War battle ground for the lat 60 years. A tolerant, educated, multicultural, and democratic, yet almost socialist Western Europe was created, neutralizing any potential Communist influence from the East, i.e. preventing dictatorships from taking hold like in the Eastern Europe. But Western Europe at the same time became awfully inefficient as high taxes had to finance this strategy.

Today, when communism fell, its back to the old ways, reforming or outright scrapping of welfare economics (see Germany). This will probably soon make Europe look more like America, with all its extreme disparities. It is all a matter of money after all, Americans could be like Europeans of the past (!) if piles of money were invested in the populus through massive subsidies. Costly, but could be done.

I worry that Europe will become again a place of great strife, as capitalism takes hold again. Profits are up in Europe, as welfare economics recede, but eventually a new war may take place, as social reform will continue to make life more difficult. There are already multitudes of revisionists organizing in Germany, to reclaim their old possesions in the so called Eastern territories (today's Poland). As subsidies are cut in Germany, these people are becoming desperate and are looking for an easy way out in the East.

These are difficult times, and we don't know were social reforms in Europe both East and West will eventually lead the whole Continent, and how it will look in just a few decades. Profits will be up for sure, but not without a tremendous social cost.

M.J.