Box in the road

[snopes]

Comment: Hi! I'm curious as to whether you've ever heard this story
before: A person driving down the street sees a box in the road and
decides to hit it. They then feel very strongly that they should not hit
the box and either before they reach it or after swerving to miss it, they
see a child crawl out of it. My mom told me that one maybe 25 years ago;
her telling was a classic "friend of a friend" version in that it happened
to an unidentified man and she had no details on it. I did not hear it
again until yesterday when a woman in church told the exact same story,
only she said it happened to her personally. She did not provide any
details either.

I did not disbelieve it the first time because I had never heard it before
and didn't think about it too deeply. What has made me skeptical now is
hearing it again after so long, and the fact that although this woman said
it happened to her, it was still told in FOAF style, as though it was
really designed as a glurge-style emotional bombshell to captivate her
listeners.

Having learned to drive in the interim between the two tellings, I now
find it unlikely that this is true in that I doubt any driver who saw a
box big enough to hold a child would elect to run over it in the first
place. It goes without saying that it would be foolhardy to hit even a
small box.

[Starla]

This was my grandma's favorite urban legend (which she told as fact). "Don't hit boxes in the road! There might be a kid playing inside."

[Floater]

Originally Posted by Starla

"Don't hit boxes in the road! There might be a kid playing inside."

It could also be a hedgehog in which case you run the risk of having a flat tyre.

[Dropbear]

Originally Posted by Floater

It could also be a hedgehog in which case you run the risk of having a flat tyre.

It could also be an anvil - fallen off the back of the ACME truck trying to deliver it to Wiley Coyote.

Dropbear

[diddy]

My uncle actually say a box on the side of the road. It did not have a baby in it though. He took the box home, varnished it and gave it too me for storage.

[qualli]

I heard this as happening to my grandfather. Always took it as fact because I had never heard it from anyone else, and the place he was in.. I could imagine a child being left alone long enough to do this.

[kismet]

My father claimed this happened to him when I was a kid, but there were puppies in the box instead of a child. He actually kept one of the puppies and I met the dog. But as I got older and found out my Dad often lies just to improve on a story, I began to kind of wonder about a box in the road full fo puppies. And now, reading the story almost word for word (started to hit the box, decided not to and a puppy crawled out) seems to confirm that Dad was full of it yet again.

He also told me he once had a bent license plate and swerved to miss a rabbit on the way to pick up a date. Well, when he picked her up she walked around to get in the car and started screaming. The rabbit's head was sitting on the license plate on the front of his car.

[A Turtle Named Mack]

Originally Posted by kismet

He also told me he once had a bent license plate and swerved to miss a rabbit on the way to pick up a date. Well, when he picked her up she walked around to get in the car and started screaming. The rabbit's head was sitting on the license plate on the front of his car.

I guess that proves that rabbit's feet aren't such good luck after all!

My boss claims that the child-in-the-box bit happened in her neighborhood when she was a child. I wonder if she was just told that it happened as a warning to watch out for dangers like that.

[Richard W]

I remember Paul Daniels did a magic trick where he pretended to be trying to escape from a cardboard box in the middle of a racetrack before a rally car got all the way round and hit it; there was a flag signal if he wanted the car to stop because he was in difficulty. (Er, he was probably chained up and stuff too... just a cardboard box wouldn't be much challenge.) The trick was that the flag got raised but the car smashed the box anyway, and he wasn't in it. But they didn't tell the co-presenter (Mike Smith, I think) what was going to happen, so when the flag went up he thought Paul Daniels was really going to be killed and panicked, which was quite funny. Unfortunately it was just a trick and Daniels was fine. Paul Daniels turned out to be driving the car, I believe.

[Joostik]

I remember this one being told in the '60s, when I was a kid, even as something having happened more than once.

[TrishDaDish]

Originally Posted by Starla

This was my grandma's favorite urban legend (which she told as fact). "Don't hit boxes in the road! There might be a kid playing inside."

While not exactly an urban legend, it made me think of Ma freaking out to us kids: "Don't play in abandoned refridgerators! They could close on you and you could die!!!"

This confused us as our street had a construction company, opening to the sewers and gasworks down the street, but nothing close to abandoned fridges hanging around.

[Tahanala]

I was told about the refrigerator as well, but my mother would then explain that there no longer was any risk, since modern fridges didn't close with a latch.

I don't know if it is true, I never saw such an old refrigerator; however, it would then make sense.

[imjustasteph]

[classic snopes commenter] its true about the box in the road story because I saw about three boxes in the middle of the four lane orad the other day in front of dollar geeral and i didnt hit them because a kid might be in them so there are defianty boxes in roads sometimes and you cant tell what might be in them but pray.
[/classic snopes commenter]


As for the refridgerator, my mom's sister's brain will never develop past the age of twelve, and this is attributed to oxygen deprivation from being stuck in an old fridge. Apparently they were all playing hide and seek and she thought it would be a good hiding place and couldn't get back out.

Although, that could be an embellishment by my mom's other siblings, since she was separated from them all until adulthood, and with most of them separated from one another as well, I don't know how many were supposed to have been present at the time of the incident or how many mouths it passed through before it hit my ears. For all I know, she was born with brain defects, or recieved them through abuse, and the mother, or possibly a foster parent, made up the refridgerator story to cover up or something.

But, that's what it is generally attributed to in the family.

[CannonFodder]

Just don't leave your boxes on or right beside the road. It gives me a very unpleasant adrenaline dump every time I have to drive by one.

[TrishDaDish]

Alls I'm sayin' is, we had three real chances to goof around and hurt ourselves down the street, and Ma's worried about imaginary fridges closing in on us.

[DemonWolf]

Originally Posted by kismet

He also told me he once had a bent license plate and swerved to miss a rabbit on the way to pick up a date. Well, when he picked her up she walked around to get in the car and started screaming. The rabbit's head was sitting on the license plate on the front of his car.

I'm guessing that he didn't get a second date!

[Tarquin Farquart]

What about having a whole stack of boxes? How long would that last before someone decided to knock them all down with their car?

[Nick Theodorakis]

Originally Posted by Tahanala

I was told about the refrigerator as well, but my mother would then explain that there no longer was any risk, since modern fridges didn't close with a latch.

I don't know if it is true, I never saw such an old refrigerator; however, it would then make sense.

My grandmother had one like that when I was little (back in the 1960s). I think it's been at least 30 years since I even heard a PSA about abandoned refrigerators.

Nick

[Beejtronic]

Originally Posted by kismet

My father claimed this happened to him when I was a kid, but there were puppies in the box instead of a child. He actually kept one of the puppies and I met the dog. But as I got older and found out my Dad often lies just to improve on a story, I began to kind of wonder about a box in the road full fo puppies. And now, reading the story almost word for word (started to hit the box, decided not to and a puppy crawled out) seems to confirm that Dad was full of it yet again.

While I can't say whether your dad's telling the truth or not, a box full of puppies on the road isn't impossible. There was a story in our local paper a few months ago that a box of puppies had been brought to a shelter after being found in the middle of the highway. It was suspected that someone had left them there to get run over. Luckily, this guy decided to move the box out of the road so that no one would hit it by accident, and he found the pups inside.

Unfortunately, the article can't be viewed unless you want to pay $4 for it.

[BlushingBride]

I always heard the story about leaf piles. Don't run over leaf piles because wee little children might be hiding in them. (Boxes makes more sense... I always wondered how you'd end up with a leaf pile on the road.)

I still remember the Very Special Punky Brewster where Cherry nearly suffocated while playing hide-n-seek in an old fridge.