Driving can be pretty boring, especially if you're stuck doing it for hours. Sometimes it can get a little too interesting for comfort though.
Reddit users shared their wildest driving tales when u/nuke_t0wn asked:
"What's the creepiest/strangest/scariest thing you've ever seen or experienced while driving on the highway?"
10.
Was driving to work on a Saturday morning down the interstate. I was in the middle lane and I glanced in my side mirror and noticed a car catching me quickly. I looked over as it passed me and in the back of this coupe was a lady banging on the window screaming for help. I sped up to them and she noticed me and started screaming again. I got behind them and followed them and could see him reaching back and hitting her. I called 911 and as I was he sped off. As I was talking to dispatch I caught up and he noticed me and realized I was following him. He moved over in front of me and came to a complete stop. At that point I didn't know if he had a gun or what so I went around him and exited. Once he went pass the overpass i got back on and followed him but he eventually lost me as I couldn't keep up. Fortunately I was on with 911 the entire time and they had cops ready to pull him over. Eventually they got him to pull over and when I passed them he was handcuffed on the ground and she was sitting there. Come to find out it was his ex and he abducted her and was taking her who knows where. I followed them for around 30 miles weaving in and out of traffic and going 100 mph at times to keep up. Definitely creepy thinking of what he was maybe preparing to do to her.
09.
The car two cars ahead not making his exit and hitting the concrete barrier head on, spinning into the car in front of us. Both were totaled, but it didn't even touch us. Made me never want to drive distracted ever, knowing that a single moment could do so much damage.
08.
A meteor falling out of the sky. It was like 10:30 at night. In my peripheral vision I thought maybe it was a single fire work because it was bright. I looked up and saw a bright green ball shooting across the sky. I was overcome with fear for a split second and the thought flashed through my head I hope I don't die right now from a warhead or a huge meteor strike. It fell across the horizon for what seemed like forever before it appeared to burn up. Turns out it landed a STATE away. No one got hurt but it was definitely copper because it was glowing bright green. The three cars ahead of me had all pulled over just as I did which I didn't notice until I pulled back onto the road. It was seeing these other people witness what I just had that solidified what had happened for me. It w as seen falling from the sky in the surrounding three states. This was in the Midwest. It landed in Minnesota.
-EvKG
07.
One early morning (about 6am) I was driving with a friend on the highway in the twist and turns of a mountain valley. We were just having casual chat in the car, nobody was on the highway at that time of day and even less on this part of the highway.
I took a quick peek in the rear view mirror and saw a car coming not fast, but FAAAAAST. I tell my friend to watch out for the incoming car because I thought they were coming way too fast and wasn't changing lane to pass us over.
At the very last moment, my friend kind of swerved a little toward the right of the lane and the car behind us hard swerved toward the ditch. The car disappeared in the deep ditch and reappeared, jumping about 4-5ft in the air toward the highway, at about 100km/h with the momentum and back on the highway it was. Like it was nothing, the driver speed up and we lose him ahead of us, as he was going about 140km/h after the near-death accident.
We were absolutely shocked and couldn't saw a word for like 2-3 minutes. We assumed the driver feel asleep and at the last second saw he was gonna ram us and swerved toward the ditch. Shock probably made him speed up after the impact.
It was crazy surreal because there was nobody else for miles around even after that.
06.
One time I was maybe 13-14 years old coming home from a hockey tournament with my parents on the capital beltway in Washington, DC. In the opposite lane I saw a car swerve, flip, and go over a bridge into the water. I called 911 right after I saw it and the call taker said they had just received a call on it and were already dispatching.
I really wonder what happened to those people, it was a memory I somehow partially suppressed but I remember the car and what it looked like, and how frightening it was to see it go over the bridge.
05.
Grew up in New England. This was great for bugs, it's like the best place to live if you don't like giant poisonous freaky bugs.
That being said- we get a lot of moths. I'd heard stories from people of seeing huge ones but never myself.
2 months into getting my license, I was driving and heard something flying around in the back seat. I'm thinking "holy shit! There's a bird in here!"
Then I saw it.
A moth bigger than m hand. Landed on my dashboard. It's legs were like fingers.
I screamed and remembered I was on the freaking highway and couldn't loose control and kill my self or someone else.
Then it flew again, right into my face.
I screamed and tried opening the windows. My HAND CRANK windows on my POA car with this monster flying around touching me while going 60mph trying not to die.
It eventually went out the window and I was fine. Took some serious self control.
04.
About 15 years ago I was driving on a less traveled road that goes around the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Central Washington. I started up a long, steep hill when I saw I was coming up quickly on some slow moving vehicle in my lane. It took my brain a while to process what it was: a small covered wagon (dog house sized) being pulled by at least a dozen Border Collies. The driver was a haggard looking man with a long scraggly beard. Three of my friends were with me, so there were witnesses. Otherwise, I'm not sure anyone would've believed it.
03.
I drive a commercial vehicle, and typically semis and I get along well. I don't drive an enormous truck but I know how hard it is for those guys so I usually give them a lot of space, help them change lanes by moving into the left to kind of block traffic so they can get over, etc.
The other day I'm driving and I'm passing a semi who's in the right lane. He's tailgating the pickup in front of him so bad that if he'd been any closer he'd have been riding shotgun.
-As I pass him I can see he's dicking off on his phone, incredibly illegal for commercial drivers. As I'm passing him he starts to drift into my lane, so I give him a little honk, nothing obnoxious, just to let him know "hey, you're about to hit me". He jerks back into his lane, then immediately starts coming *back* into my lane, intentionally either trying to scare me or push me off the road. I drive a 8 tonne truck hauling hazmat, it's a pickup with a box on the back so my truck basically takes up the entire lane, there's very little space between him and I to begin with. I eventually get past him, and get over into the right lane. He passes me, probably going about 80, which is fast for a semi. He gets in front of me, cutting me off within about a foot, and slows down. Ok, cool, you're an ahole, you got me back. Eventually the two lane turns into three, he f---s off up the road as I slow down to just try to get away from him.
Eventually I catch up to him. I'm in the far right lane, and here he comes barreling up the middle lane. As he's passing me he whips his trailer into my lane, intentionally trying to hit me again. I jam on brakes and just let him go.
All that because I honked at him when he came into my lane and almost hit me.
Edit: here's a tip for driving with semis. If they're trying to merge over in front of you and you're going to let them, flash your lights to signal to them they can clear your vehicle. It's incredibly difficult for them to judge if their trailer will clear your front end with mirrors alone, especially in heavy traffic. Usually they'll flash their hazards/brake lights to say thanks. It's fun.
02.
I live in a rural part of the UK. I was temping just after Uni at a remote castle in the middle of fucking nowhere. It was around 2am driving home across a moor and I go over a hill and I come across a heard of ponies just chilling in the road, almost had a heart attack. Successfully emergency stopped.
Another time I was driving home again at night, its pissing down with rain so driving slow on another rural road. The road ahead seems to be...moving? I slow down to a stop and realize my route ahead is covered with...frogs?! f*cksake! so with my head beams on I stop, get out and thought the best things to do was to chuck all these frogs over the hedge. Someone came in the other direction and stopped and watched me hurtle several hundred frogs over a hedge...so on this occasion I probably scared them.
I've also come across a naked rambler, his junk just swinging in the breeze. I swear a lot in my car!
01.
In rural east Texas I was driving through some VERY thick fog on a backroad. Like so thick I could only go about 25mph since I could barely see the road in front of me. An important part of this story is that I was driving an old pickup truck (without a lift).
After creeping forward down the road for a good while and being scared out of my mind, I got the feeling that I could see the outline of something up ahead, and I should slow down more and try to move to the side of the road. As I got closer, I could tell that the outline I saw was a dead hog (common for east Texas), but it was one of the biggest hogs I've seen. Easily 400 pounds (less common) AND THEN IT STARTED TO MOVE. It lurched to the side of the road a few times like it was being dragged by something. I thought "wow that's a strong person. Should I help them move it so no one gets in a wreck??" But before I stopped my truck completely and got out, the thing that was moving this 400+ pound hog stood up.
And I found myself eye level with the largest dog I've ever seen in my life. This dog stood looking me directly in the eyes while I sat in the driver seat of an old Chevy truck. I've honestly never seen anything this big before and wasn't sure if this was a farm dog or a werwolf. Not only was it shockingly tall, it had the mass and strength to drag a behemoth by itself. It had shaggy white fur so it reminded me of a Pyrenees, but it was easily one and a half times the height. It took us probably 15 seconds of shock (on both parts?) of staring before I said F*CK THIS SH*T and rocketed out of there.
After I got home (going 50 now) I thought about, "damn not only was that a monster, it was smart enough to move the hog off the road before eating it?"
I'm convinced to this day it was some east Texas Old God.
