Safety Concerns
Hopping a freight train today can be dangerous and even life-threatening. Freight trains are much faster and more secure than in the heyday of hoboing. Freighthoppers may face adverse weather conditions and develop dangerous symptoms such as frostbite and hypothermia. Additional hazards include being jostled off the train, arrested, or attacked by another hobo. According to author and journalist Ted Conover, a large percentage of modern-day hobos are ex-cons, and violence is not uncommon among the transient population.
Read more about this topic: Freighthopping
Famous quotes containing the words safety and/or concerns:
“Can we not teach children, even as we protect them from victimization, that for them to become victimizers constitutes the greatest peril of all, specifically the sacrifice—physical or psychological—of the well-being of other people? And that destroying the life or safety of other people, through teasing, bullying, hitting or otherwise, “putting them down,” is as destructive to themselves as to their victims.”
—Lewis P. Lipsitt (20th century)
“Universal empire is the prerogative of a writer. His concerns are with all mankind, and though he cannot command their obedience, he can assign them their duty. The Republic of Letters is more ancient than monarchy, and of far higher character in the world than the vassal court of Britain.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)