America is plagued with a swath of stupid, victimless crimes that serve no purpose except to strip away the freedoms of those not financially well endowed.
Last semester I was heading home for a long weekend in Covelo to see friends in the town where I grew up. I haven’t been able to afford a room in Santa Rosa for three years and I spent most of that time eating out of dumpsters while furthering my education. I was on the Guerneville Road on-ramp to 101 North –a beautiful place to hitch from; I’d done it numerous times. It’s got a nice big shoulder with plenty of room and a shade tree before the “no pedestrians” sign.
I was standing there with my thumb out for maybe 10 minutes before a highway patrol car stopped. I thought nothing of it because I’d hitched for years in California without a problem. “You can’t stand there,” he said, his voice seething with unwarranted anger.
“I’m not past the sign,” I replied politely, pointing to the “no pedestrian” sign a few hundred feet up the on-ramp.
“You cannot obstruct traffic!” he yelled.
“Where can I hitch from then?” I asked, as non-confrontationally as possible.
“You can’t be on the corner, and if I find you here again, I’ll arrest you!” he yelled with his arms crossed. He didn’t move until I got back to the sidewalk.
There was no reason for the yelling –Roid-Rage and abusive cops are a different story– but that is the safest place to hitch from in Santa Rosa. There is space and the traffic light insures lulls in traffic.
Rather than a concern for public safety, banning hitchiking demonstrates the trend in California laws and city ordinances to limit the freedoms of the poor, to keep us out of sight. I did not, and commonly don’t, have the $50 (each way), to take Greyhound to Willits, where I would still have to hitch into Covelo. I am a young, working college student.
What about the people who don’t have so many doors open to them? How about the block of cement between Jalisco’s and My Friend Joe’s on Mendocino Avenue where the homeless guys sit and ask for change? I see the SRJC PD kick them out of there once a week. What reason do they have for kicking out the homeless, the down-trodden, the less fortunate? Loitering laws and no-sitting laws are victimless crimes.
These dumb laws have always been here, but it’s getting worse: the laws multiply like rabbits. There are more and more of them and the economy has tanked. Even people who are qualified for jobs can’t find work. This country is failing people left and right, then citing them for sitting down and asking for some change or threatening to arrest them for hitchhiking.
These laws represent the ugly idea that Americans, Santa Rosa citizens, shouldn’t have to see the poor; shouldn’t have to be reminded that not everyone has a new BMW.
Every one of us is an American. Every one of us deserves the freedom to go home for the weekend. Every one of us deserves the freedom to sit down on a curb if we don’t –or even if we do– have a couch at home. Just because people don’t want to see a poor kid with his thumb out, or some guy sitting on a curb asking for a beer with a slur, doesn’t mean we don’t have the right to do it. Some people’s desire for a sterile world where everyone is just like them doesn’t trump our right to be people. Despite having less money, we deserve the freedom to live our lives, which includes going home for the weekend or having a seat.
