Hitchhiking

Hitchhiking, sometimes auto-stop or hitch a ride (English hitchhiking ) is the generally free along on the trip in a foreign motor vehicle. Such rides itself is referred to, inter alia, as a lift ( British English ) or Ride ( American English ).

The English equivalent of the German sense hitchhiking is the verb to hitchhike. With a Tramp one thinks in English rather a migrant worker.

Principle

The Hitchhiker signaled his Mitfahrwunsch roadside usually by a stretched upwards thumb. Often passing motor vehicles also lettered signs with the desired destination be pleaded. However, motorists can the hitchhiker submit certain information; is the hitchhiker still in town, pointing the motorist repeatedly on his steering wheel, it means that he does not moves out of the place. Another possibility for the entrainment is to address the drivers of cars directly at appropriate occasions; this can be done for example at petrol stations or motorway service areas. In the Netherlands, there are special, designated by signs sites for hikers who Liftershalte that are provided with a holding bay allowing easy hold.

In addition to the hitchhiking hitchhiking by car and the ship has a certain widespread.

Eco-friendly Travel

Since hitchhiking produces only slightly additional exhaust gases, this form of travel is very environmentally friendly. By hitchhiking existing capacity to be used better. If all the cars in all the seats were filled, then the number of cars on the roads would be much lower. The vehicles, which are used, usually drive anyway. Thus caused by the extra weight of the hitchhiker and his luggage, only a little more pollutants and greenhouse gases.

Security

There are few studies in which the safety of hitchhiking was examined. An examination of the California Highway Patrol from 1974 did not detect a higher risk for hitchhikers to become a victim of crime. A study by the Federal Criminal Police Office in Wiesbaden presented in 1989 found that the actual risk is lower than generally believed while hitchhiking. The authors of the study therefore advised not in principle on the hitchhiking. While it is according to the study, in some cases against women to lewd remarks and " stupid sayings ", this however, they are exposed to in everyday life. Violence are very rare.

History

In Germany, hitchhiking was popular as a cheap journey to trips already in the 1920s in the youth movement. Even " hitchhiking " was already known. So wrote and composed Werner Helwig, a member of the Nerother migrant bird, 1929, the much sung song we hitchhiking through the country. In addition, Helwig published in 1930 in the Berlin journal The cross section a poem under the title Car moral or spiritual Hardening, which is a kind of typology Tramp appropriate behavior for car brands. An example:

"At Ford, it is advisable to show a sports face, the racing machines themselves of even the trains, in a bad car, it is good to grin, mischievous, caught like to verbotnem way very fine car but geziemet melancholy, gelassne fatigue, subdued interest. "

In the 1960s and 1970s, hitchhiking in many countries has been particularly widely used as inexpensive way of traveling, especially among young people of the hippie generation. That certain adventure of this form of travel had not seldom a part of their appeal.

The number of hitchhikers on the motorways and trunk roads seem to be ever since ( but especially since the second half of the 1990s ) declined sharply, although hitchhiking to overcome short distances, as is still often used, for example, from one village to the nearest town, .

The decline of hitchhikers in Germany is due to a higher proliferation of cars in adolescents, the introduction of weekend ticket, call taxis, online car-sharing and low-cost airlines, but also the stronger urge for security. This includes both physical integrity and the certainty of punctual arrival. In part, this is likely to be due to the early 1990s, emerging new insurance models where the possible vehicle occupants must be determined beforehand. Nevertheless, hitchhiking is still working pretty well in Germany because many motorists, the hitchhikers, hitchhiking know from their youth. Especially in the GDR hitchhiking was common and considered normal travel form by NVA soldiers.

The Hitchhiker movement of the 1970s and 1980 years was primarily in the GDR in the blues scene or customers spread around the confines of everyday life to escape. Here and in other Eastern Bloc countries, the hitchhiker oriented to the ideals of freedom of the hippie movement and has been classified by the government and state security services of those countries accordingly as oppositional because they did not meet the prescribed cultural patterns and were often politically active.

In other countries, such as in Ireland or the Czech Republic hitchhiking to this day is still a popular form of travel. Sometimes ( not in Ireland ) is also a contribution to the travel expenses common. In Romania hitchhikers give the driver as a gesture of friendliness a bit of money, which is now out of all proportion to transport prices by train or bus. In Central Asia, it is even the rule that motorists a sense of purpose through the carriage of passengers. In Cuba, hitchhiking is required by law. This means that local motorists are required to take hitchhikers, because the cars not the individual but the society belong.

The German auto stop society Abgefahren eV, aroused keen media interest in August 2007. The association wants to rid the hitchhiking from the " hippie fug " with the help of the Internet and make hitchhiking popular again. The Association supports a number of projects around the topic hitchhiking and regularly hosts hitchhiker meeting in Germany, and since 2008 an annual German hitchhiker championship.

Commercial use of media

In several European countries a reality TV program series called Peking Express was aired, in which the participants are accompanied by the camera move as quickly as possible as a hitchhiker from Europe to Asia and had to make do without local language skills and dictionaries. They also had to organize free accommodation and food.