Hitch-Hikers Are A Menace To The Travelling Motorist

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 74, 6 April 1949, Page 7

Hitch-Hikers Are A Menace To The Travelling Motorist

The hazards incurred by motorists in giving hitch-hikers rides were commented on by a patrolman of the Automobile Association. He quoted several cases known to him of motorists incurring huge damages claims for hitch-hikers whom they had picked up and who had been injured in accidents.

There was only one «- method of carrying them without risk to the driver, and that was by taking out passenger insurance. Third party risk insurance does not cover these cases.

Hitch-hikers are becoming very cheeky, he said, even going so far as to walk out into the road to stop a car. Many of them, when told of the risk that the driver was running, stated that they would never think of sueing for damages. However, the opposite was all too often the case, and the patrolman quoted a case where a driver was liable for several thousand pound damages for one hitch-hiker who had been killed in an accident.

The possibility of accident is always present to the motorist, and cases of being sued by deceased estates are all too frequent, he said.

Professional hitch-hikers as a menace on the roads were becoming a bad nuisance, and the motorist would do well to refuse them, and in so doing quite possibly save his pocket a few hundred or thousand pounds damages, concluded the Automobile Association officer.