Shunpiking

The term shunpiking comes from the word "shun", meaning to avoid, and "pike," a term referring to turnpikes, which were roads which required payment of a toll to travel on them. Payment was made at a toll station where a pike, a long wooden shaft, was placed across the road barring passage. After payment, the pike would be turned, or raised, to allow vehicles to pass. Persons engaged in shunpiking are called shunpikers.

Related Topics:
Turnpike - Toll

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Shunpiking has also come to mean an avoidance of major highways (regardless of tolls) in preference for bucolic and scenic interludes along lightly travelled country roads.

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For some, practice of shunpiking involved a form of boycott of tolls, (rather than just avoidance of them for financial reasons) by taking another route, perhaps slower, longer, or under poorer road conditions.

Related Topics:
Boycott - Toll

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