"Offizielle" Trampstellen

naja.. also ich hab perönlich absolut kein problem damit auf das stellen-suchen zu verzichten... wenn es einige stellen gibt, die bekannt sind und an denen dann auch auch viele autos anhalten, dann ist das doch um einiges besser als stundenlang an ner "falschen" stelle zu stehen und auf ein auto zu warten, das endlich mal anhält...
solche stellen sind ja auch ein sicherheitsaspekt. da können die autos dann gefahrlos anhalten und man selber ja auch genauso gut einsteigen bzw. aussteigen.

Och, das rumirren und suchen ist fuer mich eigentlich der weniger schoene Teil vom Trampen. Solche Trampstellen faende ich super, sofern das denn jemals passieren sollte...

Trampstellen sind eben staendige Werbung fuers Trampen, auch wenn da keiner steht, so sehen es die Autofahrer, wenn sie vorbeifahren... und 'Neulinge' kommen so vielleicht auch mal auf die Idee sich da hinzustellen... In unserer organisierten Gesellschaft wuerde dies somit wahrscheinlich positiv aufs Trampen auswirken... Klar, wir Profis haben dies nicht (mehr) noetig...

Official hitchhiking spots do very much increase the visibility of hitchhiking as a transport mode. Situated as a rule on the most popular spots (thus exits of major cities leading to motorways to other major cities), they also provide the guarantee that a good spots exists on the basic level.

Eg. B96 Grunauerstrasse in Berlin, next to U-Bhf Schoeneweide, is known as a great hitchhiking spot, but there actually is no REALLY safe bay to stop by the road.

Situation in NL is not perfect either, the official spots in Leeuwarden and Enschede have already been receded, in Utrecht the thumb-sign was stolen several times over past two years, in Nijmegen one of the two spots is usually used as a parking place and in The Hague the little sign "lifters" is full of big stickers, making it kind of worthless. On the hitchhiking spot in Amsterdam though, the road management have placed a new rectangular blue sign with thumb. Future situation in Maastricht remains uncertain; reconstruction of the road may start in two or three years, and it remains unclear if a new official hitchhiking spot will be designated.

It may be fair to state that the Dutch hitching spot are a souvenir of the era when Dutch students were not offered free train and bus transport, which started by 1989. Still in the 1980's there were a lot more hitchhikers than now for that reason (it was common to see 20-30 students on the same spot on Friday afternoon, hitching back to the parental home). But already it was in decline. It would be interesting to discuss whether hitchhiking among Dutch students would revive in a way if the free public transport would be stopped (anyway, also in Czech Rep for example I understood that hh among students has become much less usual than in the past - shame).

The extreme example of how visibility of hitchhiking could be improved is by placing a rectangular blue sign with white thumb at the beginning of every (or most) motorway access lanes, thus also making thumbing there fully legal, and the "motorway" sign just 50 meters further on. The cost of this is virtually nothing, and it seems for me a very logic step if a society seriously wants to fight environmental decay, traffic jams / congestion. They don't... do they? Don't you like such hitchhikers' heaven :D