t’s before my time, but hitchhiking was a common way for young people to travel in the USA. It’s now banned in many states.
Police hyped up dangers in public service posters but in reality, incidents were likely pretty rare, as most people are decent and would try to be helpful.
But due to these PSA scare campaigns (and likely also due to horror movies in the 80s which always paired hitchhiking with “danger”), people became less and less likely to pickup a child or teenager who was hitchhiking and by the 1990s adults learned to fear engaging with unknown children in case they might be accused of some illegal contact – also an irrational fear as that was unlikely but nevertheless, it had an effect and nowadays hitchhiking is much more rare of a practice in the USA.
But if there was free-range children in a changed society, it’s something that might come back, as children and teenagers often don’t have money to travel and might be in situations where they need a ride to places. They might not have a phone available and will depend on the kindness of strangers.
But as similar to my earlier comment: would the adults be kind in these times