We Got Back In The Car and Just Sped Out of There’: Drivers Name The Towns That Spooked Them Most

A post shared to r/AskReddit on Oct. 6, 2026, asks which town scared cross-country drivers the most. The post drew about 5,200 upvotes and 4,700 comments at the time of publication.

The thread invites people who have driven across the U.S. to describe one town where they stopped and felt unsafe. Replies name places in Arizona, Indiana and Texas, along with several other locations described as among the scariest spots.

One commenter recalled running a red light and encountering three men on foot in Indiana.

"Gary. Only time we've just run a red light." Three men were walking toward the car, and one of them was holding a bat, the commenter said. "They didn't seem like they were going to ask me how my day was going," the commenter explained. The commenter said the driver "made a decision to blow that red light and get out of there."

A reply described a nickname used for people seen around Flagstaff, Arizona.

"I used to live in Flagstaff, Arizona, and you'd see them every now and then in town."

The commenter said, "We'd call them 'mole women' because the old Netflix show 'Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt' nailed the look." The commenter added that "the men would look normal and the women would look straight out of Little House on the Prairie. My take is that if a religion drastically restricts women's clothing but not men's, then the women in that religion are being repressed."

One commenter described stopping for gas in a town near the Utah border.

"Colorado City, Arizona," a commenter wrote. The commenter said the group "had no idea" about the town's background and "just pulled in to get gas."

Large houses with high privacy walls lined the town, and many looked intentionally unfinished, the commenter recalled. Inside the convenience store, "every single person inside just stopped what they were doing and stared at us."

The women in the store wore pastel prairie dresses with their hair pinned up. "The cashier didn't say a single word to me when I paid. I have never felt such a heavy, suffocating feeling of being watched in my life. "We got back in the car and just sped out of there."

A viewer recounted a farm-equipment haul that ended with the group being refused service in East Texas. The commenter and their stepfather were hauling cotton-harvesting equipment across the state when they stopped in a town near Arkansas. The encounter made even the stepfather uncomfortable.

"Even we got hit with that 'Sundown Town' [...]," the commenter wrote. Both men are white and were dressed for agricultural work. "They refused to serve us in two different restaurants (there were only two)," the commenter said. A sheriff's deputy then told them "the only thing we'd be allowed to purchase in their little hovel was the fuel to leave."

The commenter could not recall the town's name. "I can only imagine how much worse it would've been had either of us had any melanin," the commenter wrote.

The Daily Dot was unable to independently verify the events described in the thread. The details above reflect commenters' accounts as shared on r/AskReddit. The commenters' identities and usernames, the people described in Flagstaff, and the East Texas town have not been confirmed.