People around the world celebrate Halloween in a variety of manners. For those with children, it’s dressing up and going trick-or-treating. Others prefer to scare themselves and visit ‘haunted’ houses or watch scary films. We look at some haunted roads around the world and the legends around them. Will you be driving your hire car down them this Halloween? We won’t be…
Photo by: sanderstock/Fotolia
United Kingdom
There are several roads in the UK that have been the source of ghost sightings.
Considered to be the most haunted road in the UK, the M6 reportedly has several other-worldly visitors. There have been reports of troops of Roman soldiers marching by people travelling through the toll stations. Apparitions of a lorry driving on the wrong side of the carriageway and a female hitchhiker who’s desperate for a ride home have also been spotted.
Along the A229 which runs from Kent to Sussex, a lonely woman in a white dress has been seen wandering near the road. Many drivers claim to have hit her when she appears suddenly, only for them to get out to check and she’s disappeared. It is believed that she is the ghost of a bride who tragically lost her life on the road after being hit by a car. There’s also claims of a hitchhiker who gets into vehicles, says how to put the world to rights, then disappears.
The Stocksbridge Bypass has been the source of ghostly claims right from the start of its construction. Workmen reported seeing a monk standing nearby, just watching people and traffic. The monk is still seen from time and time, and he’s been known to appear inside cars briefly before leaving again. Ghostly children have been seen playing under the bridge late at night, singing playground songs and rhymes.
Scotland
Scotland’s most haunted road, the A75, has become known as ‘The Ghost Road’. You’ve guessed it, ghosts have been seen there. Apparently, a couple will appear out of thin air, get hit by an unsuspecting driver, and then disappear. What’s more unusual about this one is that there’s been a high number of reports of people seeing this couple. Over 100 in fact. Surely that many people can’t be wrong?
United States
A safari zoo, Jungle Habitat, closed on Halloween weekend of 1976. Ever since then, rumours have been flying about Clinton Road in New Jersey. Terrifying animals stroll through the surrounding woodlands. There’s also phantom headlights which come from nowhere. People claim that if you throw pennies off the nearby Old Boy Bridge, a ghost of a young boy at the bottom will throw them back at you.
Route 666, America’s famed Highway to Hell, is prone to sights of speeding ghost cars, flaming trucks, and demonic dogs. Worse than that, people claim to disappear from the road, turning up elsewhere with no recollection of how they got there. Ghosts appear as passengers in vehicles and there’s everybody’s favourite, the young girl in a white dress, roaming the roads. Popular advice is “Don’t stop for hitchhikers.”
We didn’t think we’d find a road with a worse history than the Highway to Hell, but we did. Bloods Point Road in Illinois has a terrible history. There have been murders, suicides, hangings, witchcraft, and traffic accidents reported on this stretch of road. Cars set in neutral will reportedly be pushed by an unseen force. A traffic light will change location. Ghosts will be seen in the cemetery along the road and whistling will be heard. The ghosts of a murdered family and children killed in a traffic accident walk the road.
Photo by: Lario Tus/Fotolia
Canada
In the North-West corner of Niagara Falls sits what’s known as the Screaming Tunnel. Local legend has it that lighting a match or lighter here will cause the ghost of a young girl to blow it out and scream at you. There’s various stories about why her ghost resides in the tunnel but what they all have in common is that her body was burned here. The tunnel was used in the 1983 movie adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dead Zone.
China
Tuen Mun Road in Hong Kong is renowned for its poor conditions leading to heavy congestion and a high number of traffic accidents. Myth has it that the ghosts of those that die on the road come back to cause others to swerve and crash.
Switzerland
Belchen Tunnel on the A2 running between Basel and Chiasso is home to the ghost of an elderly lady in white. She steps out in front of vehicles and disappears. She’s also known for getting into cars and foretelling of bad things to come before she leaves.
Will you be driving haunted roads this Halloween?
There will be some of you that can’t wait to jump in a hire car and explore these haunted roads. Others, like us, will be avoiding them. We recommend that all your seats are filled before you travel. Have you ever experienced any ghostly phenomenon in your car? Have you driven down any of the roads we mention? Let us know in the comments!
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Written by Jessica Juby.
