I would have never expected Greyhound canceling their services in western Canada to affect my life this much, but now it is super inconvenient for me to get from Edmonton, where I currently live, to Vancouver, where I am going to start the journey. After debating between fly with a bike and drive with a bike, I chose to drive.
So the start my journey was not the best:
- Highway 1 was closed due to an accident. I waited 5 hours on the road for it to open up. That’s in addition to the 13 hours I have to drive in a day.
- I got into a car accident at 2 am trying to get to Vancouver and my truck was junked;
- the ride share person I picked up from Calgary to go to Vancouver stole a few things from me during the chaos, including my camera bag with my mirrorless camera (expensive) and GoPro, my phone chargers, power banks and my solar charging panel. He had the chance to do it while I felt sorry for not being able to drive him all the way to Vancouver and was trying to get him a ride from another stranger at the gas station to Vancouver;
- I got a little stuck in a small town called Popkum, 120km outside Vancouver on a Sunday with no bus service to Vancouver.
But I do consider myself very lucky:
- During the 5-hour-wait on the highway, weather cleared up and the views of the mountains were beautiful.
- Neither I nor my passenger got hurt at all during the accident.
- I reported to the police that my things were stolen, and the police got a hold of the guy, telling him that he would get charge for stealing. He got scared and returned most of my stuff two days later. In the end, other than my GoPro and a charger + power bank, I got everything else back.
- I found a ride from Popkum to Mission from a nice guy with a van and then from Mission, I rode back to Vancouver. It’s like started my bike trip just a little early.
When I told the police officer about the story of me picking up strangers on ride share apps and on Kijiji, he thought that I were crazy. I said that I even considered stopping at a rest stop and sleeping in the vehicle with a stranger in it, he said that nobody he knew would ever do that.
I tried not to judge this young man who stole my things when he had the chance. He was a bit rude and aggressive over text messages and was 15 mins late for the pickup. He was also smoking weed along the trip. I told myself that it was totally legal now just like smoke a cigarette and drink a beer and at least he didn’t do it in the vehicle. The police office said that we can sure judge other people’s actions.
Some people are not very terrible deep down but they just don’t always do the right things. Should we punish them for what they did or let them go easy so that they get a chance to correct their behaviors.
I don’t think I would stop picking up ride share persons, or even hitchhikers simply from this one event. I still believe that most people are good people and if I spend too much time and effort worrying what they may do to me, that would just be a waste of my valuable time. Yes I may have occasional unfortunate events happen to me, but I guess that’s just a risk I am OK to take. Maybe I do need to be a little more careful so that I can’t say I learnt nothing.
I am curious what you would do though:
1. Would you offer ride share to strangers and why?
2. If you can choose, would you charge this young man and go to court? Or would you let it go?
Crazy Girl Ning's Journey 