Have thumb, will travel in Nevada County despite hitchhiking risks

NEVADA CITY – Cameron Robertson planted his worn sneakers in the gravel beside a highway on-ramp the other day and extended his right thumb. Robertson owns a car – several of them, in fact – but with gas prices at $4 a gallon, the 37-year-old auto mechanic prefers to hitchhike his way around Nevada County.

"There still are kind people out here," said Robertson, who's been thumbing rides since age 7, minutes before a local in a red Toyota agreed to drop him off at his girlfriend's house in Grass Valley, three miles down the Highway 49. "You just gotta know where to find 'em."

Hitchhiking's obituary has been written many times over the years, as tales of roadside kidnappers and serial killers have made drivers leery of picking up strangers.

Perhaps it's a reflection of Northern California's indomitable hippie spirit or a consequence of a struggling rural economy, but hitchhiking remains a vital way for some people to get around up here.

And with rising gas prices, it's bound to get more popular along roadsides and online, where tech-savvy ride seekers bum lifts through Web sites like Craigslist and rideshareonline.com.

Nevada County Sheriff Keith Royal puts many miles on his cruiser, roaming the backroads of his mountainous county and said not a day goes by that he doesn't spot at least one hitchhiker.

Royal said he wishes he could tell them of the horrors his department has witnessed in the past few months.

One incident involved a Grass Valley woman sexually accosted by the hitchhiker she picked up on Highway 174. The 24-year-old woman was driven to the woods, handcuffed and threatened with rape by a Pollock Pines man who kept an assault rifle in his truck.

"People become too trusting," said Royal, who's never thumbed a ride himself but knows many locals who have. Even though most rides turn out safely, he said, "Don't hitchhike unless you know the person picking you up, and don't pick up someone you don't know."

Hitchhiking is illegal along federal interstates, largely as a matter of public safety.

But it is generally legal along California's state highways, county roads and city streets, so long as the hitchhiker stays on a sidewalk and does not enter the roadway, said Jamie Coffee, a spokeswoman for California Highway Patrol. Violators are cited under several codes, from disobeying posted signs to soliciting near a freeway, so it's difficult to tell how many hitchhikers are out there, she said.

Last week, Nevada County authorities charged Christopher Wayne Feistner, 20, of Alta, with battery and indecent exposure after he hitched a ride with a Grass Valley woman and allegedly began committing a sexual act in the front seat.

The woman who picked him up, described by authorities as a feisty 37-year-old, endured several miles of this before pulling over at a gas station, kicking him out and alerting a nearby California Highway Patrol officer. Feistner was on parole from a previous battery conviction.

"Your ride is over," the woman exclaimed as she booted him from the car, according to the incident report.

In January, a Nevada County jury convicted Charles Sullivan, 61, of Pollock Pines of kidnapping and threatening to rape a 24-year-old woman hitchhiking from Utah to her sister's home in Yuba City.

Prosecutors said Sullivan persuaded the woman to ride with him to a secluded place in the woods, off Bowman Lake Road. There, he handcuffed the woman and bound her feet with zip ties that he carried in his truck.

The woman used a pocket knife in her cargo pants to cut herself loose and was ultimately rescued by some ATV riders who happened to be in the area.

Hitchhikers themselves say horror stories such as those are rare.

In four years on the road, Nicholas Thompson, 27, said he's endured his share of "weirdos": The guy whose van interior was lined with pornographic cut-outs. The man whose criminal record prevented him from driving into Oregon. The woman who tried to convert him to Christianity.

"But you can always get out of a situation if you're smart," said Thompson, who recently moved from San Francisco to Oklahoma City and wrote an Internet guide to hitchhiking safely. "You can always turn down a ride if you don't feel comfortable."

"People mean well," continued Thompson, who read Jack Kerouac's hitchhiking ode "On the Road" at an impressionable age.

Still, he advises that women should hitchhike only in pairs and should never pick anyone up if they're traveling alone.

As drivers become more reluctant to pick up roadside hitchhikers, a growing number of ride-seekers are turning to the Web.

UC Davis graduate Sita Kuteira, 23, described herself as part of a "community of bums" posting for rides on Craigslist. She said she usually gets a response within a couple of days – faster if she offers to pay gas and split driving shifts.

"Maybe I'm testing my luck, but it's worked pretty good so far," said Kuteira, who can't stand long drives by herself and was looking for a lift to Humboldt County for the weekend.

Back in Nevada City, along the rocky shoulder of Highway 49 at Broad Street, Robertson hitchhikes the old-fashioned way. He holds no signs. He doesn't offer to pay for gas. He just sticks out his right thumb, grimy from a day's work in his auto shop, and hopes for the best.

He said he usually flags a ride within 10 minutes, often from a local who sometimes hitchhikes, too.

Robertson has heard all the horror stories and tells a couple of them himself, such as the time a woman revealed she had a gun in the glove box. But it's far more likely, he said, that he'll find an interesting conversation, save a few bucks on gas and get to where he's going.

"You meet mostly nice people out here, and a few freaks," Robertson said, as a light rain tapped on his ball cap and cars poured onto the highway in front of him.

About the writer:

• Call The Bee's Todd Milbourn, (916) 321-1063.