In the Dark

[snopes]

Urban Legend etiquette dictates that if you suffer the misfortune of encountering a car moseying down winding roads in thick suffocating darkness, headlight-less and spectre-like, that the innocent and unarmed would be ill advised to flash their own headlights at the unbeaconed automobile to prevent themselves from becoming a victim of gang initiation, driven mercilessly off the road.

Mark Billingham begins his story with this legendary gang initiation ceremony, and the rest of the novel follows the progress of the pregnant spouse of the policeman killed as a result of the crash caused by the gang ritual. We are introduced to the characters through a car chase started by an unsuspecting driver flashing their headlights at an unlit car.

http://www.acedmagazine.com/content/view/2246/31/