This story may be familiar: A woman is driving alone at night when a pickup truck begins tailgating her. Its driver honks and flashes his high beams. Perhaps he even rear-ends her car. In the mirror, she can see he’s some burly lumberjack type, and she flees for her life. But when the police catch up with them, they pounce on a man – this one hiding in her back seat. The twist is that the other driver spotted the ne’er-do-well and was just trying to protect the woman. He called the police and was using his high beams to prevent the bad guy from sneaking up on her from the back seat.

The truth is that there are very few instances of criminals hiding in a car’s back seat. Yet, this remains a popular urban legend. And believing it might do you more harm than good.

Here’s another variation: a woman is at a gas station when the attendant inside asks her to come sort out an issue with her credit card. She tells him the payment went through, but he insists. She doesn’t like the idea of getting out of her car and doesn’t like the look of the attendant (again, a burly lumberjack type). But when she finally joins him inside the station, he tells her he spotted someone hiding in her back seat and has called the police.

As far as David Mikkelson – the founder of the Snopes fact-checking site – can tell, these stories have been popular since the late 1960s. They may have been inspired by a true account of an escaped murderer crawling into a car’s back seat in 1964 in New York City. He didn’t appear to have any motive besides finding a hiding spot in the crowded city. The irony is that he chose a car that belonged to a police detective, and the officer shot the criminal as soon as he found him.

Someone wrote into Ann Landers’ 1982 column to recount a similar event happening to their friend, but the story was just lifted from the urban legend which was already over a decade old. Similar scenarios have appeared in multiple horror movies since the 1980s.

Some folks see a “moral” in the story, as the woman assumed the first scary-looking man was bad when he was just trying to protect her. Perhaps that is why the legend is repeated so often. Mikkelson argues that the story is “sexist to the core,” pointing out that the woman is helpless against her attacker and needs another man to protect her. But it may be a dangerous story to repeat for additional reasons.

Carjackings certainly happen. But in the vast majority of cases, carjackers approach vehicles with weapons, making their intentions immediately clear. Some may jump into the back seat of a stopped car and then make their intentions known. But the urban legend of a carjacker spending miles hiding in the back seat is just that – a legend. Thanks to modern cars unlocking only the driver’s door on the first click of the key fob, it would be nearly impossible for a criminal to pull this off, even if they wanted to.

As compelling as the “killer in the back seat” story is, it may be a bad idea to pull over if someone is flashing his or her high beams. It may also be unwise to comply if someone asks you to get out of your car and enter a place like a gas station. You see, tactics like these are actually used by criminals. Hiding in your back seat for miles? Not so much.