I'm not afraid of terrorism, are you?

[henryp]

I just googled Hitchhiker Robberies.  This was in the first 30 results.  Mostly guns.  A couple knives.  A kidnapping was in there.  Usually people get robbed at gun point or carjacked in the stories.  One guy got shot in the head.  This is just the people picking up hitchhikers.  I have no idea what the statistical likelihood is.  But it isn't nothing, and is discouraged by highway patrol, who suggest you call 911, and then they'll try and help them out after checking their id.


http://www.wlox.com/story/10334492/highw...ck-them-up

http://www.kxii.com/home/headlines/Hitch...57471.html

http://www.kltv.com/story/28047837/armed...ned-on-him

http://search.lib.virginia.edu/catalog/uva-lib:2217953

http://www.thestate.com/news/local/crime...52152.html

http://www.wect.com/story/24743083/coupl...hitchhiker

http://wishtv.com/2014/08/26/hitchhiker-...arjacking/

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1...8483&hl=en

http://www.canoncitydailyrecord.com/news...ed-robbery

http://blog.al.com/breaking/2013/09/hunt...ker_l.html

In a way this is more making my point then yours, what you see here is media alarmism. Statistically you aren't more likely to be robbed by a hitchhiker, not according to the one study done on it, but boy is it sure more likely to get reported by the media. Refugees aren't more likely to murder, but I bet every time they do it'll get media coverage. One those stories even illustrates the difficulty of robbing someone in a moving car.  Most of them include calls not to pick up hitchhikers, which is bullshit. It's cherry picking incidents to try to make something seem more dangerous then it is and leaving us with a less friendly society because of it. We live in the safest time in American history, but people have never been so afraid. I'd hate to live my life in such fear and to become a worse person because of it.

Aren't more likely to get robbed by a hitchhiker than what?  The alternative is not picking up a hitcher, which comes with a 0% chance of them robbing you.  I can't imagine what other comparison they felt was relevant.  I agree it's unlikely you'll be robbed by a hitchhiker.  How unlikely, I have no idea?  And even with stats, we need to break it down by specific circumstance.  Picking up a kid in a college town in the afternoon vs. picking someone up in a bad neighborhood.  Picking up one person vs. two, age, appearance, location...etc..

I can't imagine the data exists.  Even reading the sites that encourage picking up hitchers, they stress safety first, and give tips that try to help identify shady situations.