Why is hitchhiking so weird for most people?

I came to think that a world where the practice of hitch-hiking is not normalised is not a very pleasant one. There a lot of reasons to decide to just leave for an hitchking-adventure but, on my view, there is no rational reason not to take on an hitchhiker.

In Sweden, because of the very individualistic touch of the culture people are normally pretty suspicious of one another, especially of those who do not look swedish. This is some sort of tabu in Swedish society which, as it is well-known, it is famous to be tolerant and open (while it is not). On the other hand, this can kind of experience is very common among most of non-swedish people living in Sweden. But let’s not get out of topic and let’s stick to hitchiking.

A couple of days ago I was on my way to Uddebo, a very special village with a spiritual and hippish touch situated in the swedish forest. I hitchhiked from Gothenborg city centre following the instructions of http://hitchwiki.org/en/Göteborg. As all the other times I had hitchked in Sweden, 1/4 of drivers who took me on where swedish and the other 3/4 either tourists or migrants.

Now, my question is very plain: if you have a free seat in your car why should you not take on an hitchhiker? You might think ”he is just someone who wants to travel for free! That’s not right” and in this case you would have a point which however it is not mine because that would mean that we have very different values. I would, in fact, focus my attention on the kind of experience here and now the hitch-hiker is looking for and how enriching taking him/her on might be. Why is he/she doing that? Where is he/she going to? Does he/she have a final destination? You might think that you are afraid of her/him or any stranger. But why should you be afraid of her/him? If this is the case there is a problem that should be recognised. In my opinion your fear is statistically speaking extremely groundless and irrational. Because of your irrationality and/or your egoism you are just priving someone of your help and yourself of a potential meeting which could improve your life. Moreover, if you care about the climate and you are travelling alone in your car then you do not really care about the climate, that person could have probably taken the train, you will answer. Right, but what if that person did not have money for the train? Should be travelling an experienced for those who have money or is it rather the case that travelling should be a right for everybody? After all, human species is nomad.

In order to break the everyday apathy of the most alienated society I have ever experienced in my life and to re-normalise a very  smart, natural and sustanaible practice I created the following memes to be shared on social network (in both swedish and english. However, I wrote this in english to be understood by a wider range of non-swedish speakers too).