The killer in the backseat (also known as High Beams) is an urban legend from the United States and United Kingdom.[1] It was first noted by folklorist Carlos Drake in 1968 in texts collected by Indiana University students.[2]
Legend
The legend involves a woman who is driving and being followed by a car or truck. The mysterious pursuer flashes his high beams, tailgates her, and sometimes even rams her vehicle. When she finally makes it home, she realizes that the driver was trying to warn her that there was a man (a murderer, or escaped mental patient) hiding in her back seat. Each time the man sat up to attack her, the driver behind had used his high beams to scare the killer, causing him to duck back down.[3]
In some versions, the woman stops for gas, and the attendant asks her to come inside to sort out a problem with her credit card. Inside the station, he asks if she knows there's a man in her back seat. (An example of this rendition can be seen in the 1998 episode of Millennium, "The Pest House".) In another, she sees a doll on the road in the moors, stops, and then the man gets in the back.
Origin
The story has been identified as circulating at least as early as the late 1960s, and may have gained more widespread recognition after appearing in a letter to advice columnistAnn Landers in 1982.[4] It has been speculated, including by Snopes founder David Mikkelson, that the legend may have been inspired by a vaguely similar case which took place in 1964, in which an escaped murderer hid in the backseat of a car, only to end up shot by the car's owner, a police detective.[4] Other somewhat similar, though not identical, cases have since been noted, including by folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand.[5]
Interpretations
The story is often told with a moral. The attendant is often a lumberjack, a trucker, or a scary-looking man: someone the driver mistrusts without reason. She assumes it is the attendant who wants to do her harm, when in reality it is he who saves her life.[6]
In a 1998 episode of Millennium, "The Pest House", Frank Black chases a doctor from a mental hospital after one of its patients escapes into the back of her car and tries to kill her. When she pulls over at a gas station, the attendant saves her by taking her inside.[9]
A 2003 episode of the detective series Jonathan Creek, "The Coonskin Cap", begins with a version of this legend, except that instead of a killer inside the car, the pursuing driver is trying to alert the woman that there is a body tied to the back of her car.[10]
The 2022 episode of American Horror Stories, "Drive", Marci (played by Bella Thorne) is driving home from a night club and a jeep starts flashing its high beams at her. Marci loses the jeep and hides behind a car wash. Her friend Piper tells Marci of the legend. Later, it's revealed the driver of the jeep really did see someone in the backseat, but it wasn't a killer, it was actually someone Marci kidnapped herself, subverting the legend.[11]
^Brunvand, Jan Harold (2012). Encyclopedia of Urban Legends, Updated and Expanded Edition. Vol. 1. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. p. 361. ISBN978-1-59884-720-8. Although other car-crime legends are well known abroad, 'The Killer in the Backseat' does not seem to have taken root very strongly outside North America.
^Drake, Carlos. "The Killer in the Backseat." Indiana Folklore 1 (1968), 107-109.
^Bronner, Simon J. (1988). American Children's Folklore. Little Rock: August House Publishers. p. 149. ISBN978-08748-306-8-2. ... Suddenly, I realized what was happening and did the first thing I could think of. I flashed my brights to warn her. I saw the figure quickly disappear. I followed the car home and flashed my brights each time I saw the figure. After she ran in the house, I told her to call the police...
^Barden, Thomas E. (1991). Virginia Folk Legends. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia. p. 324. ISBN978-08139-133-5-3. The story structure of a suspected harmer turning out to be a savior appears in such modern legends as that of the truck driver following a woman home flashing his lights. For interpretations of this legend, see Carlos Drake ... and Xenia E. Cord, 'Further Notes on the Assailant in the Back Seat'...
^Dietsch, T.J. (30 October 2015). "11 of the scariest stories to tell in the dark". geek.com. Archived from the original on 11 July 2019. Retrieved 11 July 2019. Another widespread urban legend from the 80s and 90s, "High Beams" follows the misadventures of a young woman who seems to be in danger from the man driving the truck behind her car.
^Brunvand, Jan Harold (2012). Encyclopedia of Urban Legends. Vol. 1. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. p. 361. ISBN978-1-59884-720-8. 'The Killer in the Backseat' provided the initial scare in the 1998 film Urban Legend. (In the film, however, the assailant does actually kill the driver.) David Letterman's telling of the legend as he heard it growing up in Indianapolis is included in my book Too Good To Be True...
