Are bad guys really hiding in the back seat of cars?

[Rama]

@Colibri

You said it fits the “exact scenario,” which it doesn’t. I’m just saying that it doesn’t fit the standard form of the urban legend, which is that a robber or rapist hides in the backseat of a random vehicle in hopes that a victim will get in without noticing him.

Nonsense. The threadstarter asked about ‘‘bad guys in back seats’’, which is what happened. And killers aren’t excluded when it comes to this urban legend. See this clip from the movie Urban Legends.

[Tim_T-Bonham.net]

@Eyebrows_0f_Doom

Do people not lock their car doors?

No.
The cost of repairing jimmied doors is more than that of anything inside the car.

[dropzone]

@YPOD

Older cars - 50’s and prewar - often had larger back seats and bench seats in front, someone could hide or at least be less conspicuous in the back, especially in the dark.

And the back seat was easier to move around in and it was easier to get from back to front or vice versa. Nobody gets pregnant in a back seat anymore, either.

[Eyebrows_0f_Doom]

@t-bonham@scc.net

No.
The cost of repairing jimmied doors is more than that of anything inside the car.

You leave the keys there as well so the thief doesn’t have to do any damage to start it?

[Patch]

@Rama

Nonsense. The threadstarter asked about ‘‘bad guys in back seats’’, which is what happened. And killers aren’t excluded when it comes to this urban legend. See this clip from the movie Urban Legends.

Works for me either way. I’m just curious how often baddies are back there.

[Shagnasty]

@Patch

Works for me either way. I’m just curious how often baddies are back there.

Apparently not very often but it can happen. Most modern sedans aren’t really conductive to that type of thing. I suppose a crazed person could hide in the back of an SUV or mini-van quite easily but it wouldn’t be that easy to get to the driver once the car was in motion. I am also familiar with people that were killed in carjackings which is much more popular but that doesn’t strike the same creepy chord with people for some reason.

I don’t even like telling that story about my father but I still think it fits here. He still has some type of PTSD over it. I only asked him about it directly twice and he still doesn’t like to talk about it but he did reluctantly. I was born only a few years after it happened and my grandparents were the ones that mentioned it from time to time but never when he was around and they are dead now. His friends also told me about it when he wasn’t around. The kidnapping, attempted double-execution and resulting trial caused quite the stir in our small hometown for a few years. Lots of people were freaked out about deranged killers hiding in the back on their 60’s and 70’s cars but that is the only case that I have personal knowledge of.

It is a little like having a parent who drove home from a remote makeout session only to find a bloody hook still attached to the passenger door handle. Just because something is an urban legend doesn’t mean that something similar didn’t really happen to someone.