Hitch a Ride

long roadI think car-sharing is a great idea but sometimes it can be difficult to find someone to share with. That’s why I was interested in this article on the Reuters website about a new car-sharing service in Germany.

There’s lots of interesting vocabulary related to travelling by car in the article, too. The first interesting word is ‘hitchhikers‘. To ‘hitchhike‘ is to get a free ride in someone else’s car or truck and a ‘hitchhiker’ (spelled ‘hitch-hiker’ in the article) is the person who does this. We often use the phrase ‘hitch a ride‘ to talk about travelling in this way, too.

It is also mentioned that hitchhikers have used their thumbs to get a ride in the past. Often a hitchhiker would stand at the side of the road with his arm out and his thumb extended to show that he wanted to be picked up. We can also use the expression ‘thumb a ride‘ to talk about hitchhiking.

There’s another interesting expression later in the article where the author mentions picking up passengers ‘en route‘. This just means on the route he is taking to his destination.

Is hitchhiking common in your country?

Today’s photo is by Coffy.

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