REMEMBER hitchhikers? At an M1 services recently I spotted two, the first I'd seen in months if not years. What was even more astonishing is that they were young women. Mad? Probably. British? No chance.
The girls were Spanish - and clearly unaccustomed to the theory that any hitchhiker on our roads is just there to be nabbed by some berserk HGV driver with murder on his mind.
The fact is hitchhikers don't really exist any more because our perception of safety is now so warped compared to 20 or 30 years ago. There was never some mad serial hitchhiker killer stalking Britain's roads – or some homicidal hitchhiker bumping off drivers for that matter. People just got scared of picking up hitchhikers – and hitchhikers got scared of people picking them up.
In the same way, our perception of how safe children are when they go out alone has changed dramatically over the years. When I was a lad on school holidays I'd disappear at dawn, pop home for fuel at lunch and then be out again until dusk. There were trees to climb, cliffs to scramble over, knees to scuff and building sites to explore.
Today few parents would feel comfortable with their little lad or girl disappearing into the unknown for the day.
What has changed? Not the statistics on child abduction and murder. In the last 30 years the number of child murders has been consistent and consistently low, around 70 a year. Of the total just over ten per cent were murdered by a "stranger" instead of a parent or guardian.
High-profile cases such as James Bulger in Liverpool in 1993, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham in 2002 and the victims of Robert Black in the 1980s seemed to fuel a change in parental concern which has now changed the freedom we allow our children.
Kids don't go out as much – and it's not just down to obsessions with Xbox and PlayStations. It's because parents are happier for their kids to be in their homes – or at least within sight. Even the school run has become an escort mission for many mums and dads who have a nagging feeling their little ones are in danger walking to school alone.
Another consequence of this change in attitude has been with the way police handle reports of children being approached by strangers. Police are now reluctant to issue more than the briefest of statements about incidents – or are happy to leave it to schools to inform parents - because they fear a pandemic of panic if they make "too big a deal" of any reported abduction attempt.
But as the recent cases in Hull show, first at Hull Fair, and now several reported attempted abductions from the street, there may actually be something to be concerned about – or at least informed about. After all the first thing any decent copper worth his salt is going to do is ask A) was this a genuine abduction attempt? and B) is there a connection between them?
If there is the slightest possibility that A and B are correct then the police have a duty to come out and warn parents that there may be some genuine danger out there to children out alone. If A and B are questionable then they should say so too.
And it is then up to parents to decide what measures to take.
The fact remains, it's very unlikely there's someone out there intent on abducting a child in Hull. But how unlikely that is today remains something only the police know. What advice are they giving to their children when they go home? Because whatever that is, we should be able to give the same advice to our kids.
• Read more: Warning after two more child snatch attempts in Hull area
