Scary. I’m glad this woman is safe and hopefully not too injured from her escape, but lone women have to stop hitchhiking. This is such an unbelievably high-risk activity, it just makes no sense.

I can not fathom why anyone is still hitchhiking along this highway. It is hard to get behind calls for funding for chartered buses and the like to run along Highway 16 when people are still making the choice to risk their lives for a free ride.

I echo the above. Why, why, why are women hitchhiking alone? It’s insanity.

Something doesn’t add up here.

Did she jump out of a moving vehicle? It sounds like it from the story. Why didn’t she go through the door? Every minivan I can remember has a sliding door with a window that doesn’t open behind the driver and passenger seats, unless it had a hatch back and a window which could be gone through.

The hitchhiker must have been really small, and the window would have had to been all the way down to fit through. If the minivan was moving when she climbed out she would have rolled as she hit the ground and been severely injured or killed. If this was on a bridge, there would have been a railing which she would have rolled into.

Doesn’t make sense.

As she hit the ground rolling after she jumped, she said to herself (hopefully), “This sure has been a lesson to me”. If not, it may be an after thought.

The bridge here is one traffic only, so probably the vehicle has stopped to wait for on coming trafic to get off the bridge. And maybe tht how she jumped out…. but this is scary..

@Pojeb_sa

The above article never said she was in the backseat. She was most likely in the front with the driver. And why are you so cynical about what this hitch hiker did in an EMERGENCY situation?! You can’t plan or predict your actions when your adrenaline is that high. All of our fight or flight instincts are different. Just be thankful this woman trusted her instincts AND reported this to the RCMP.

If she had “instincts” I doubt she would have got in that van let alone hitchhike. Instincts? Better late than never, eh?

Good God, I hope they nail this b*st*rd!

When you have no money and want or need to go somewhere, you will do what ever it takes. This includes hitch hiking on the highway of tears.

Maybe if there was a community shuttle in operation, she may not have had to make the choice that she did of riding her thumb.

Not everyone has the means and resources most vanilla Canadians take for granted.

Before ya’ll start moaning about her needing to get a job or other legitimate source of income, consider the employment opportunities in Kispiox.

Cheese

Loki: “When you have no money and want or need to go somewhere, you will do what ever it takes. This includes hitch hiking on the highway of tears.”

Your life must not be worth much if you’re willing to risk it for a free ride.

“most vanilla Canadians…”

Racist? Maybe.

People get drunk or high. They get depressed or have a fight with someone, they feel like no one cares for them and they just want to get away from it all. I have had to talk young women out of doing exactly these sorts of things. Usually it is spur of the moment, often because they are upset one way or another. Think they are going to call for the community shuttle when they feel like that? Not likely. They don’t want anyone to know where they’ve gone, to “teach them a lesson”.
I’ve seen it many times. I’ve been fortunate to see them change their minds.
Quite often, they just need to have somone listen, to get it off their chest.

“most vanilla Canadians” is not racist. “vanilla” is just a slang term for “mainstream, default, ordinary, plain”. I’ve often heard it used to describe a model of electronic or computer equipment with no special features, no options or add-ons.

Loki, re: your comment “When you have no money and want or need to go somewhere, you will do what ever it takes. This includes hitch hiking on the highway of tears.”

What a pathetic comment! You are simply justifying stupidity!! You mean to tell me that you think that it is acceptable to partake in unsafe activities (hitchhiking) because you “want” to go somewhere? When I was young, we didn’t just go anywhere we wanted. In addition, our parents told us not to hitchhike because it’s not safer!

Where is good judgement and common sense these days and where are the parents of these young people that are making irresponsible and selfish decisions such as hitchhiking?

Hart Guy I don’t think Loki was justifying anything. The fact of the matter is that there are situations and circumstances that contribute to these choices, which many of us have absolutely no concept of. These are issues that need to be addressed. Pretending that this was just quite simply a stupid idea is being incredibly naive and very judgmental. Was it stupid? Yes. I do agree with that, however I know nothing about this young woman nor do I have the slightest clue what her circumstances are. Try to remember that when you get into your car, or call a friend for a ride or buy a bus ticket for yourself using money you have in your bank account. I think we can all agree she shouldn’t have been hitching but how about focus on the fact that there is someone out there who is quite possibly a danger to others who are in vulnerable situations? Blaming the victim is easier for a lot of people because then they can continue to believe it can never happen to them!

“Try some compassion”, in spite of the tragic loss of life that has already occurred along Hwy 16 and in other areas, we still see young people, in particular young women and girls hitch hiking!

I for one can’t see any situation where I would put my life at risk by hitch hiking. Sorry, but I just don’t! Is going to visit friends worth this risk? Is going to a party worth the risk? Even a doctor’s appointment isn’t worth the risk, because proper planning and scheduling would allow someone to set up another means of transportation!

Most of all, I wouldn’t risk my life because I wouldn’t want my family and most of all my mother to have to live with the loss of my life through actions such as hitch hiking!

There isn’t anything that I would do to put myself in harm’s way and risk having my mom have to live with this.

Where are the adults? Where are the people with vehicles that could offer a ride. Where are the parents?

Don’t get me wrong! I am very happy that this young lady was able to “escape” a very unfortunate situation, one that sadly could have ended tragically! I truly hope that they catch the SOB in the vehicle. But unfortunately, there may always be another SOB in another vehicle, waiting and looking for another victim!

How many more times are we going to here of these situations before people start to realize just how dangerous hitch hiking can be? Please tell me what would make it worth the risk??

hart guy:
I am so glad that you had a solid family with good values and as a young person obeyed their directives in not doing dangerous activities. It is also very good that you had transportation available to get you safely to and from your destinations.

No imagine that you, your family and your friends did not have those resources, and that you lived in a rural setting with little access to convenience services like internet, and public transportation.

You might reconsider the risk assessment of hitching. Yes, it is a dice roll with every vehivle that passes by.

the pathetic thing is that there are people out there oblivious to these and more factors.

If you would like to do more than denigrate a comment, there is an effort in process to start a public transportation solution for the highway of tears. I suggest you contribute some of your more than adequate resources to that effort in the name of safety.

Have a nice day!
cheese

Loki, I grew up in a family that was not very well to do financially. I can imagine that I grew up in a rural setting because I DID grow up in a rural setting without internet and public transportation. We only had one vehicle and when Dad was at work, he had the vehicle with him. If I needed to go somewhere and I didn’t have a ride, then I didn’t go! Simple as that!

Unless it’s a life or death situation, in my politically incorrect mind, hitch hiking is not worth the risk!

It’s time to stop making excuses for bad decisions and poor judgement. I say this thinking that some people will even go so far as to make excuses for the people that have committed crimes against hitch hiking young girls. It wasn’t their fault, their father beat them and that’s why they commit crimes or something like that!

Bad people exist! Let’s not make excuses for them. Let’s recognize that in spite of all of our actions, they exist! Now, let’s try to do a better job telling our young people about the risks that are out there! Again, where are the parents? Where are the adults??

You really want to know where all of the parents and adults are?! Dollars to donuts, they’re doing (or were doing/have done) the exact same thing and are living in isolated, impoverished reserves and communities; where THEY weren’t even taught right from wrong, safe from unsafe, etc. If THEY weren’t educated by THEIR parents, how can they effectively educate their own children?

In case you haven’t noticed, all sorts of people continue to hitchhike the highway of tears, both male and female, young and old. The cold, hard, sucky truth is that whoever is committing these acts on highway 16 is only interested YOUNGER WOMEN. Do you ever wonder why that is? They’re easier to overtake with physical power. Young vulnerable women firmly believe nothing bad will happen to them, because we all know “they know someone who has hitchhiked and was fine”.

That mentality has to stop. Attitudes have to shift. All it takes is one bad ride. So until we come up with a way to “fix” this (like having a viable, fiscally responsible transportation alternative, or eliminating poverty and addiction), stop with the criticism and the hate. You’re not helping.

Actually I agree with your later sentiments. They are all valid except for the fact that the there are a great number of fractured families that do not have that knowledge to pass on. Not once did I make an excuse for this bad decision. What I did try to state is that we all need to consider the circumstances that lead to those bad choices. Ideally, we as a modern group with the resources actually do something about it.

Ragging on a young adult with little economic resources and likely with few employ-ability skills is not the positive action. The positive actions would be to first catch that waste of skin, and second prevent other young women and girls from hitching by enabling them to travel safely. If that means a rural public transportation, then that is what we should do.

On top of the actions, there also needs to be a paradigm shift by those that think hitching is a viable means of travel. This is not the glory days of old. It is a very dangerous world with a lot of freaks running loose.

No matter what, unless and until the fortunate actively reach out to the less fortunate, we will have the scenario repeated. We cannot continue the current caste system. Even India is changing that.

What did they do prior to motor vehicles showing up on the planet.

My dad always laughed as we drove by any hitchhiker and said out loud “buy a horse”

Instead of debating hitchhiking on this forum, we should be focused on catching this bastard. I doubt this is the first time that this guy has done this and likely won’t be his last. Spread this story around and get this guy picked up. Who knows what else he could have done to someone else.

Heart guy I agree with what you are saying. I mirror your thoughts and your common sense. What I am saying is that many people do not have the same resources, the same education, the same role modelling. Yes, despite the tragic loss of life there are still those who continue to hitchhike and this is a big problem. Where are the parents? Exactly! Where are the adults? Exactly! This young woman, for reasons we will likely never know, and many other young women continue to risk their lives. Why is this? There is far more to this than we can even begin to comprehend. These people are vulnerable and make what we consider to be stupid decisions but this does not make it okay for someone to victimize them and the focus needs to be on catching the freak(s)and also educating those who are at risk and providing some sort of transit system for them because as silly and insane as it seems to us to be hitchhiking, it makes perfect sense to others who have no other means.

There has been a lot of stupid comments regarding this topic. Well–maybe one or two that weren’t stupid but most were knee jerk reactions with no thought behind them at all. What kid ever did anything stupid and at the same time, was concerned about whether it would effect their mother??

Angela_R, I agree with your comment. When I read the headline of this story, I thought to myself that maybe, just maybe, the RCMP will catch a person who is responsible for some of the Highway of Tears deaths. I am crossing my fingers that this will be the case. Wouldn’t it be nice if this is the break the RCMP need?