THE HITCHHIKER There is a stretch of road that runs between Peak Hill and Parkes in western New South Wales. It's the sort of road that on a clear night you can see headlights of other cars in the distance a good twenty minutes before the car passes you. Here's where the story takes place but it's set on a clear day and that's what makes it inexplicable, at least to me. My relative was driving this length of road on a fairly normal, sunny day. The only thing may be considered unusual is that there were several other cars on the road in front of them. This is a sparsely populated part of the state and heavy traffic is something that is generally not factored in to everyday life. As they were driving, they spotted in the distance a young man who appeared to be trying to hitch a ride. My family have a long tradition of picking up hitchers, perhaps because they are all mechanics. Anyway, my relative thought that they would see where this young guy was going. As they got a little closer, they saw he was wearing overalls and had longish hair. Even better, he looked like a mechanic! There was a car about 150-200 meters in front. As both cars came closer to the young man, the car in front blocked my relative's view of him. When the first car passed him and their view of the spot where he stood was no longer obstructed, he had disappeared! The relative I'm talking about is a very "solid" character who wouldn't like others to think they see ghosts (hence I haven't identified them:). This said, this incident rattled them enough to make enquiries as what happened. You guessed it. There was a young man killed on that stretch of road in 1974. He was a mechanic. His car had broken down when he was returning from helping a local farmer with one of his trucks. It was at night and he was hit by one of the few cars that you see in the distance, but it doesn't pass you for twenty minutes. Poor guy. I guess he wanted to see if he could do any better in broad day light. I believe others have reported seeing this young man, but I think they prefer to keep it to themselves. Contact me here: lavender_1967@lycos.com Submitted From: NSW, Australia