Here in Tahoe hitchhiking is quite common. My first year here (winter 1998) I hitched 45 minutes to work every morning (7:45am showup time) and wasn't late for work ONCE. I still hitchhike in the Tahoe area a few times a year, oftentimes at the end of a trip with my backpack and/or skis.
It's the de facto public transportation system here, since all the rich gapers from the Bay Area roar around in their SUV's and don't use the extremely unreliable, very limited bus system. The idea is, when your car runs, you pick people up, and when your car is awaiting work pending your next paycheck, you hitch.
The past few years I've had a reliable car. I (like most locals) pick up just about every hitchhiker I see. Most of the hitchhikers are ski bums getting to or from work, some are other locals who have lost their license (an epidemic here, it seems -- Tahoe is a drinking town). The best rides to give, of course, are the pack of Brazilian beauties going to Squaw Valley to run ski lifts.
Hitching is such a funny institution here -- giving and getting rides, I've been: invited to parties, met climbing partners, offered a job (which I worked for 3 years), later hired employees of my own, met longtime friends, smoked up, invited to hot springs with hotties, given and received comp lift tickets, and met hundreds of people, each with an interesting story or two.
I've been picked up by locals, tourists (usually trying to buy weed from me
), local government officials, former landlords, local employers, women, families, Mexicans, and friends ("dude, I didn't even know it was you when I pulled over!"). I've given rides to students, local high school kids, tons of ski bums, non-4WD owners during storms, Brazilians, Swedes, Argentines, Slovaks, Kazakhs, Russians, Bolivians, women, men, groups, tourists, hikers, rafters, skiers, even my own employees on their way to work.
My wife, like most women in Tahoe, also duly pulls over most of the time she sees a thumb. I've given and solicited literally hundreds of rides in my 7 years here, and while 2 were odd, none were sketchy.
I've also hitched from trail to town and back during the course of my Appalachian Trail and Pacific Crest Trail thru-hikes, usually after a week or so in the woods. Locals along the Appalachian Trail seem to know what thru-hikers are (with 3000 hikers starting the AT every year, hikers are a common sight), and are happy to give rides.
The few times I've hitched elsewhere, it sure seems like a loooong wait, and I've been treated like a bum and evangelicized (unfortunately, the evangelical seemed disappointed after he delivered the spiel, only to discover that I'm not a bum, and I am a Christian).
I love the hitchhiking culture in Tahoe, and how it is a part of the community. I realize and appreciate that this is a rare phenomemon. I would hate to live in a place where I had to be scared of the people outside my car, or in the cars driving by.
