Aside: Hitchhiking does offer a periodic change of scene. And you can look up without craning. And there's plenty of leg-room while checking out the scenery. But consider a bicycle as a principle mode; it has many advantages...
Anyway... the coin of apology is everywhere and inexorably being diluted--first by the mob-forced blood-vengeance demand for resort to it (for the slightest misstep, be it verbal, sartorial, etc.--no real limits) and, secondly, by the ease with which an apology can be shit out^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hissued from the corporate body, when circumstances really demand it, and everything being made 'nice' thereby. Apology is approaching meaninglessness asymptotically.
Über deserves a smoking hole, though, and that can't arrive too soon.