Calculated Risks: A somewhat different question.

Speaking of calculated risks, assuming that it's true that most people are decent, "normal" and honest, why is it that hitchhiking, or even picking up a hitchhiker, is as risky as it is? Why do people now hitchhike so seldomly, if at all these days? There's ample reason for that, imo, and it's not just something that's the result of fearmongering through the media; the risks are real. There's no telling who one may get picked up by. Horrible incidents can, do, and have happened. In any case, it's not just recently that the situation with hitchhiking started to get bad. The situation was already bad 35-40 years ago.

As somebody who was a teen during the 1960's, and a young adult during the 1970's, I was well aware of what was happening, even though I didn't participate in a lot of the stuff that went on back then. Although I did occasionially hitchhike as a younger adult, and had no trouble, I'd often end up worrying and wonder if I'd get to where I was going, and in one piece. Back in the mid-1970's, for instance, there was a whole slew of young women, here in the Boston area, who were never seen or heard from again after hitchhiking. Moreover, these were tough, independent, young women who really knew how to get around--and ended up dead. In fact, Boston was in the national spotlight for a number of weeks, in part, because of that.

Imho, there's something about our whole society and culture that
makes hitchhiking as risky as it is, and many, if not most of the horrendous incidents that've occurred while hitchhiking fail to even make the papers, or the news, for that matter.