My brother hiked to Oregon from Boston as a teen. Made it in three days, some rides were very long. As mentioned, truckers would call out on CB and he was often picked up again shortly.
I hitched all around southern New England, maybe as far as DC. Some days were tough, ate a lot of cheese whiz sandwiches back then. Some folks were great and would go way out of their way to set you up at a good or legal spot.
Many highways were illegal to hitch on. Sometimes the cops would let you hitch from the bottom of an onramp. Other times they would make you walk for miles to the next exit. Never got arrested or offered a ride by a statie though.
Always picked up hitchhikers until the "incident". Driving up 95 with my very wealthy girlfriend, I picked up a couple men. Dumb move but I was 19. These guys must have been on dust. Started going nuts, I pulled over, got them out, and locked the girl in the car.
Got cut up pretty good but was holding my own until one of them ripped off the back windshield wiper and started smashing the windows with it. I knew I couldn't protect her at tht point so we surrendered to the robbery. They got us for about $6,000 in cash and jewelry
The one year old Nissan was totaled between the broken windows windshield wipers and all the blood in the interior. She wasn't hurt physically but we were not a couple much longer. Never played that game again.
