18 Unsettling ‘Driving At Night’ Stories That Will Scare The Crap Out Of You

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Getting lost

“It was about three am and we were lost in a rural area. We came across a farm with a nice little wood sign in front proclaiming it “The Hanging Tree Farm” complete with a noose burned into the wood. I’m not too proud to say I freaked the fuck out and demanded we leave.” — Not_A_Master

Someone else was in the car

“Driving back from my dad’s late one night. I was only about ten minutes into an hours drive and I felt something touch my head. Not like a tickle but a proper touch like the way you ruffle kids hair. I slammed my brakes on, checked the back seats and there was nothing there. Drove home absolutely bricking it and scared to look in my rear view mirror.” — rawwrjem

Black Cadillac

“Several years ago I was driving home from a weekend camping trip. It was a very curvy, very tight, and very winding road. I have driven this road quite a bit in the past, as I’m a regular camper in the area. It’s very much worth noting that this road doesn’t intersect any other road for about 18 miles. There are only very narrow turn-outs on the side of the road to allow for faster traffic to pass. So i’m driving along, no drugs in my system but nicotine. Seemingly out of nowhere a black Cadillac with heavily tinted windows comes up on me at high speed. He’s right up my ass so I pulled off the road and let him pass me. No biggie. As soon as I’ve gotten back up to the speed limit, an identical vehicle is up my ass again. I’m now slightly annoyed, but not scared in any way. I pull over and let the driver pass again, then continue on my way. Guess what happens next? Yep. The same car comes up on me again, and again, and again. It happened six times total. Unfortunately there were no identifying marks on the vehicle and I was unable to read the plates because, well, I didn’t want to fly off the mountainside while looking over.” — GuruBushHippie

Someone laughing

“One time I was driving from Pittsburgh (where I went to school) back home to visit my family in Maryland. As I was driving, I was talking to my little brother on the phone when he paused for a second, and asked “Who are you bringing with you?”. I told him it was just me and I asked him why. He says, “Cuz I hear a little girl laughing from your end of the line.” It was like 2 a.m. when this took place and that was the longest 3 hour trip of my life. I’ve had a few run ins with this little girl (1 before this event, a few after) but the fact that I was basically trapped in the car for a few hours made it pretty unnerving.” — mrKrucifix

Woman in rags

“I was driving all night from Columbus, GA, to Washington DC. I had just finished some Army nonsense that evening, but it was incredibly important that I make it to Washington in time for a 0715 event. I was exhausted.

Somewhere in western NC, the highway got very misty. I had one of those creepy feelings, where I didn’t want to look in the rearview mirror because I didn’t want to see what evil was lurking in the backseat. Instead, I opted to turn all of the lights on in the car. My eyes were off the road for a second, and when they returned, I swore there was a women in rags standing 15 meters from my hood, staring straight into my highbeams.

I slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop, straight through where she was standing. I was sweating, shaking, and freezing. There was nothing and no one else on that road. Just me being terrified.” — quit_yer_whinin

Blood

“Was driving with a friend way out in bumblefuck, it was probably around 1am, and we drove over a huge swath of blood. A few seconds later, there was another one. The blood was very fresh.

I guess someone hit a deer or something, but you’d think with that much blood there would have been some other evidence, not to mention that deer can wreck the shit out of a car. Didn’t see any other vehicles or any carcasses on the side of the road. Still, though, something could have gotten injured and stumbled off into the woods. Teenagers that we were, we of course imagined something much more nefarious.” — Eolond

A man in the middle of nowhere

“So we lived in the middle of nowhere and to get into that middle of nowhere you took a looooong stretch of road that was surrounded by empty fields all around.

Well I’m driving home at around midnight and I crest this hill that takes you onto one of the longer flat stretches and in the farthest reach of my headlights is this guy without a shirt on standing on the other side of the road. At that moment I’d say we were 20 miles from town and another 10 from any of the people living out there. I screamed as I passed him and soon lost him in the darkness behind me.

There were no cars on the side of the road to hint he had broken down or anything. I didn’t see anything else the entire drive home so it was probably one of the scariest things that’s happened to me while living out there and I’ve seen some shit so that’s saying something.” — StonerSilence

A ghost in my car

“I was driving through a deserted town and a ghost lady appeared in my car and started screaming and scratching me. I hit the gas all the way until I got out of the town. Once I got out of the town she started getting a lot weaker and disappeared after a couple of seconds. I had to go to the hospital because I was bleeding so much. I was afraid to tell them what actually happened for fear they might think I was psychotic and not let me leave so I just said I couldn’t tell them and no I don’t want to file a police report. I’m pretty sure they thought it was a person that I was afraid to rat out.” — Hawkswift

A bloody stretcher

“I was driving down a country road out in North Carolina at 3am in the morning with a cousin of mine. After about an hour of driving down a dirt road we came across a hospital stretcher with blood on it. The stains looked relatively fresh.

We booked it the fuck out of there.” — deleted

Who was driving?

“We were driving from VT > CO for some concerts. Somewhere in NE, it was real late and I had been driving for hours and my wife was passed out. I was falling asleep so I pulled off the interstate onto an off ramp to take a nap. When I woke up I was at a different off ramp. I don’t remember driving at all.” — SchwillyMaysHere

Weird family

“I was in high school, driving from work around 10 at night to my boyfriend’s family’s house. It was a windy rural road that had lots of urban legends. I came around a curve and saw a flash of light. There was a whole family, mom & dad and little kids, standing across the road holding hands staring at the stars. I swerved and missed them. The flash of light was my headlights reflecting off of the child’s eyeglasses. I was so shook up. I called the police when I got to my bf’s (pre cell phone days). No idea if they were committing suicide or what.” — BlondeLawyer

Hiding a body

“Saw an old man sluggishly walking down a country road in the middle of the night wearing an old torn up duster and some boots, because it was a narrow old road we slowed down. He was covered in mud and dragging a really large burlap bag behind him with something obviously heavy in it. When he noticed us coming, he turned away and pulled up his coat to hide his face, then desperately while kicking his bag until it rolled into the ditch. He kept hiding his face as he scurried and vanished into the cornfield next to the road. We did not stop to see what was in the bag and got the fuck out of there. The next day we drove by again and no bag was to be found, but we could see tracks from where he went into the field.” — tehjarvis

Getting followed

“My friends and I were out one night in town and were heading back to his house. There was a railroad track in between town and his house, and when we got to it there was a car coming across going the opposite direction we were. We all had our windows down, and one of my buddies got the bright idea to scream “HEYYYYYYY” at the car as we passed them. Well, we continued, not thinking anything of it. A few seconds later, we seen car lights behind us and they were coming up fast. They were close enough for us to notice that it was the car we had just passed at screamed at. We tried to not think anything of it, but every time we would turn, they would too. We eventually got to a stop sign after we had passed his house (we refused to stop at this point) and we put our blinker on to go right, they did as well. We turned left and they did too. At this point we were just worried we had screamed at the wrong person and they were just pissed off. We took another turn down a long straightaway road and hauled ass. We eventually started breaking away from the car and it honestly looked like it just stopped in the road. We spend all the way down the road and planned to take the long way back to his house. We went to turn on his road to get back to his house and ended up passing the exact same car. We seen their brake lights as if they were going to stop and turn around, so as soon as we passed them, I drove as fast I could just to get to his house and ended up actually parking behind his house. We all got out of the car and hid behind the house, and just a few seconds later we seen the car drive by and he just kept going. We were probably overreacting about the whole situation, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to stop and see what this guy’s motives were.” — clark823

KILL ME

“My girlfriend was driving on the road going about 35 mph. A man ran out into the street a few hundred feet down the road. He then proceeded to run at her car screaming “KILL ME. HIT ME NOW AND KILL ME”. She came to a complete stop in front of him then drove around him while he continued yelling at her. Dude was out of his mind.” — OnTheEveOfWar

UFOs

“Saw a craft, a black triangle with white and red lights hovering about 50 or so feet above some houses. Pulled over, rolled down the window and killed the engine. It made no noise. Sat there watching it for a few minutes before circling the block to get a better view and it was just gone.” — tehjarvis

Final Destination

“Today when I was driving home, I got stuck behind a pick up truck with a ladder tied to the top of it. Usually I try to avoid driving behind vehicles with things tied to the top of them, but due to the traffic i couldn’t change lanes. As i was following it i noticed that the small amount of twine that was holding the ladder to the truck started to to loosen. Before I could get out from behind the truck, the ladder came flying off of the truck at highway speeds. Thankfully the last bit of the twine snagged on a rung causing the ladder to drop short. Nevertheless I was rather shaken up.” — deepseajiver99

A funny feeling

“So, I’m driving down a country highway late at night and I see a flash of blue in the distance and think “huh, that’s weird, what could that be? Lightning? Nah, couldn’t be, not a cloud in the sky.” I drive a little more and suddenly I’m overwhelmed with this feeling of distress and confusion. Like someone is hurt but I have no idea who or what happened. I keep driving and almost have to pull over because I’m some consumed by this feeling. Then I come up on this car that has run into a telephone pole and I realize that the flash of blue was electricity arcing when the lines broke.

I’m the first to arrive at the scene. A woman is half hanging out of the driver’s side door. The airbags have deployed. She’s obviously dazed, but not critically injured. I call 911. Ambulance arrives, etc etc.

I guess the strange part was how I felt the accident before I knew what happened. Like I felt it on a very visceral level. It was weird. I h ad something like this happen before where I just sort of sense that a car accident had occurred. But that time I wasn’t driving. It happened near my apartment while I was sleeping. I awoke and was similarly overwhelmed. Again, I don’t think the person was fatally injured.” — deleted

The real horror

“A spider started to descend from the ceiling and then dangle directly in front of my face.” — evange Thought Catalog Logo Mark

You might also like: From the Obscenely Strange Case Files of Dead Things Mikey by Joel Farrelly.

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