Author: staff@jalopnik.com (Abigail Longstreth)

Ilyas Kalimullin/Shutterstock When’s the last time you saw someone on the side of the road, thumb hoisted within the air, waiting for a ride from a stranger? The practice of hitchhiking has significantly declined since its heyday within the Nineteen Seventies, when teenage hippies bummed rides across the U.S. to spread peace, love, and cigarettes.  It may very well be the recent rise in true crime podcasts, the safety guarantees of third-party services like Uber and Lyft (which could themselves be shadier than they appear), the physical risks of stopping on the highway, or a bunch of other reasons which…