Hey, New Jersey, would you ever pick up a hitchhiker?

OK... so, full disclosure, I’m trying to figure out if I was a bad person this week.

Well… if I was a bad person at least in this instance.

I was on vacation out of state earlier this week and I encountered something that I almost never witness in the Garden State. While driving on a busy road in Vermont, I saw an honest-to-goodness hitchhiker.

I was driving on Route 7 and I saw a man walking up the shoulder with a large backpack. It was like seeing a dog walk on its hind legs, that's how surprised I was to see this.

As I got closer to him, he must have heard my car coming because he turned around to face the road and pointed his thumb to indicate he could use a ride.

For context: it was about 68 degrees and it had just started raining. Admittedly not great weather to be hiking uphill in.

We had a brief moment of eye contact as I drove past him, and that made me second guess continuing on my route.

Now I didn't know this at the time, but it turns out hitchhiking is very popular in Vermont. According to HitchWiki, it's a "hitchhiking mecca."

Some people hitch to work, some hitch to school, and some just thumb it across New England. It's arguably the easiest place to hitchhike in the entire United States.

Personally, it seems creepy to let a stranger into your vehicle. Though you could argue that you're in vehicles with strangers all the time if you take public transportation.

So am I a bad person for not picking him up? Is it the Jersey attitude in me? To trust no one? Would you have done otherwise?

This leads me to my two questions, please let me know if this is as rare as it seems to me:

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5's Kylie Moore. Any opinions expressed are Kylie's own. You can follow Kylie on Instagram.

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