[2][3] In this story, a drug-addicted narrator recounts hitchhiking in four different vehicles, first with a Cherokee, then a salesperson, then a college student, and finally a family composed of a husband, wife, young daughter and a baby.
The salesperson is drunk and shares alcohol and pills with the narrator before leaving him off to find a student who drives him until he catches a ride with the family.
According to critic J. Robert Lennon, the story is perhaps "the volume's most arresting work" and exhibits "sudden swerves in diction, from the straightforward and unadorned to the wildly metaphorical and self-conscious."
[9] Critic Troy Jollimore calls "Car Crash While Hitchhiking" a classic of the American short story form.
"[11] Johnson's mastery of the short story form is on display in "Car-Crash While Hitchhiking", a tale that takes the reader into the world of the protagonist's "drug-fueled insanity.