This is the question the Jonathan Rosenblum asked a Charedi Yeshiva Bachur who was trying to hitch a ride for a few blocks. The answer was, מקובל, it is accepted practice.
In his latest column (in Hebrew) in the Mishpacha magazine, Jonathan Rosenblum talks about his encounter with a Yeshiva Bachur who was trying to hitch a ride a few blocks.
His point was that today's Yeshiva Bachur has no compunction and feels no shame to take things for free even if he could do it himself. He points out that the idea of נהמא דכיסופא (literally free bread), which means that Hashem put us on this world so that we could earn our עולם הבא so we wouldn't be embarrassed by being נהנה מזיו השכינה for free, is a completely foreign concept to today's Yeshiva Bachur.
The only point I disagree with him on is that he blames it on Israeli Socialism. IMHO this is just not true. The same attitude can be found in American Yeshiva Bachurim as well. When your whole lifestyle is predicated on you sitting and learning and someone else supporting you (in style), of course you can't understand נהמא דכיסופא, it is a contradiction to your whole lifestyle.
