Should you stop for a hitchhiker? You have to follow your gut feeling
“I guess sometimes bad things happen to good robots.”
That was the message posted on the website of Hitchbot, the friendly Canadian hitchhiking robot. A simple construct involving kitchen gloves, a plastic bucket and pool- noodle arms, Hitchbot had managed the incredible feat of surfing clear across Canada on a wave of human kindness. Now he/ she/ it is dead, defunct, decapitated in Philadelphia.
See, Fresh Prince? This kind of thing is why your mom sent you to live with your Auntie and Uncle in Bel Air.
The Hitchbot story, while ending tragically, is interesting. Created as a social experiment by a team of students and researchers from McMaster, Ryerson and the University of Toronto, this glorified heap of flotsam managed to rack up nearly 66,000 Twitter followers, 112,000 likes on Facebook, and 27,000 Instagram admirers. By the metrics of social media, Hitchbot was a rocket.
As a robot, Hitchbot couldn’t lurch along like the neurotic C- 3P0, nor roll like R2- D2. Matter of fact, he was kind of low- tech, being capable only of GPS tracking, chattering away, and taking the occasional picture. Duct tape your iPhone to a garbage can and you’ll have similar processing power.
However, people loved the plucky robot, imbuing him with all the anthropomorphic qualities you would an electronic Bilbo Baggins. Last year, “he” crossed Canada from Halifax to Victoria, attending weddings and meeting a famous albino groundhog. People brought this little robot into their passenger seats, opening up their hearts at the same time.
After touring around Germany as a followup, Hitchbot next embarked on an ambitious cross- USA trip, starting out in New York. A few days later, having made it as far as the City of Brotherly Love, somebody with a greasy cheesesteak instead of a heart picked up the little ’ bot, pulled him to pieces and left him headless in an alley.
While Twitter and Facebook mourned and raged, Hitchbot’s story illustrated another tale of the road, one that’s changed over the years. If a barely self- aware stack of recycled Styrofoam can safely hitchhike clear across the country, then why don’t more people stick out their thumbs?
And, if that same robo- hobo meets an untimely end at the hands of vandals, does it prove hitchhiking is unsafe? Thumbs up or thumbs down? I’ve picked up hitchhikers before, and there’s a fair likelihood you have, too. If you’ve spent any time in rural areas, such as the Southern Gulf Islands off the coast of B. C., it’s no big deal. On Galiano, for instance, it’s common for cars to pick up a few footsore travellers and help them get up- island. Everybody knows everybody, and even if they don’t, that’s just a new friend to be made.
If a robo- hobo meets an untimely end at the hands of vandals, does it prove hitchhiking is unsafe?
Head up north to Haida Gwaii and you’ll even find a few art pieces dedicated to the art of the borrowed lift. A huge wooden hand attached to a bench sits outside the village of Masset, its thumb extended, always ready to move on.
Fuel is expensive. We travel far too often in single- occupancy vehicles, wasting resources by hauling around extra empty seats in two- tonne steel behemoths. Why not have more hitchhiking? Pack your towel, crack open the Guide, and suddenly you’re a hoopy frood like Ford Prefect.
“Almost let a pickup truck nearly pass us by,” croons Van Morrison, “so we jumped right in and the driver grinned, and he dropped us up the road.”
Well, Van, that would net you a ticket around these parts, or worse. Soliciting a ride from a roadway is illegal all over Ontario, and in B. C., standing on the side of a highway with a sign saying, “Whistler or Bust,” ( or similar) will warrant an instant $ 109 fine.
In what’s called the Golden Age of hitchhiking, when our country’s population was smaller and car ownership less common, sticking out your thumb wasn’t even really necessary. The World Wars weren’t far in memory, and Canadians felt united in trusting their neighbours. They’d stop and ask if you needed a lift, even if you didn’t have your arm out.
Add in the drifting culture of the 1960s and 1970s, and the hitchhiking life attracted a romantic aspect. But even as it did, stories of hitches gone bad circulated, especially for female travellers. Nearly everybody had a tale they’d heard of things going sour. Suddenly, we trusted each other less. Perhaps, given the experience of our friend Hitchbot, some of the wariness was justified.
Speak to any police officer, and they’ll warn you about picking up a hitchhiker or accepting a ride from a stranger, especially late in the evening. The risk is simply too great, they’ll say. Even if there are only a few bad apples in the bushel, you’re making a gamble.
Statistics don’t shed much light on the choice, either. The FBI indicates that between 1979 and 2009 there were 679 reported assaults and murders of hitchhikers along U. S. Interstates; a very low number indeed, but there are no recorded numbers of people hitchhiking to work out the percentages. Hitchhiking might be no more dangerous than crossing the street, but you’re still playing against unknown odds.
In 2011, Edmonton Oiler Gilbert Brule was driving a pickup truck in West Vancouver when he saw a familiar- looking face looking for a ride. He stopped and it turned out to be U2 frontman Bono. Isn’t it bad enough these guys show up on your iPhone’s playlist without asking, never mind mooching free rides? Still, Brule got free tickets to the gig out of it.
Still, therein lies the rub. Last time I gave anyone a lift, it was a couple of young German hikers looking to get back down from the top of Cypress Mountain to their car parked at the bottom of the hill. Broad daylight. Friendly faces. A wave at the end of the short trip, and a wish of “safe travels” on both sides.
It’s a good feeling, helping out a stranger, a fellow traveller. But what about the risk? That’s a personal call, I suppose, one to be based on gut feeling and the letter of the law.
But one thing’s for sure: Don’t go bumming rides in Philadelphia. Even if you’re RoboCop. Even if you’re Bono.