Ignoring Danger: Women Hitchhikers Embrace Practicality and Adventure

Lucky to be alive

Photo by Marian Weyo

Securing a free ride in the ’70s was considered acceptable, but for women, it was regarded as risky behavior with the potential for violence. As a June 1971 college graduate without a car, I knew full well what the worst consequence could be. But I compartmentalized that notion and engaged in the practice anyway.

In August, I started my first full-time job as an administrative assistant at the Los Angeles Dental Society. The Dental Society was a non-profit association of member dentists who practiced in the greater Los Angeles area. The two-person office was in a nondescript one-story building on Olympic Boulevard.

My boss, Mrs. Davis, was a heavy-set woman in her early 50s, built like a barrel, with short brown hair that lay close to her head. Employed by the association for years, she worked her way up the short ladder to Executive Director. The quintessential perfectionist, when she became tense, her throat tightened, and her voice became raspy, strained, almost inaudible.

Within two months, Mrs. Davis had an opening for another assistant. Heavy phones with five incoming phone lines necessitated a new hire. Mrs. Davis had a private line that she answered in her office. She did not have the time or the inclination to answer calls from the public asking for referrals to dentists.

I referred Mary Ann, my apartment mate and fellow college graduate, to Mrs. Davis, who hired her. In the meantime, our other apartment mate, Laurie, also found a job with a company near the dental society on Wilshire.

Rather than continue riding the bus to work, which took 1.5 hours one-way starting from Manhattan Beach on the coast, Laurie, Mary Ann, and I decided it would be faster to hitchhike. We told ourselves that we’d recognize a serial killer, and if we didn’t like the way a driver looked or acted, we’d simply decline the ride.

For two weeks, every morning, we stood in the street outside our apartment complex in our mid-thigh minidresses, nyloned legs on display, holding up our arms with our thumbs pointing toward the freeway.

Within two minutes, a shiny, black Cadillac Eldorado pulled over. Behind the wheel was a man…