The A38 is
a road that runs from Derby all the way to Cornwall and there is a 10 mile
section of the road in the county of Somerset that had many sightings of a
hitchhiker who would always dressed be described as wearing a long light
coloured overcoat, whilst holding a torch downwards and was described as a middle-aged
man. He would sometimes appear in the middle of the road so that when a lone
driver would see him, they would swerve so as not to hit him, but the man was
nowhere to be seen when the driver stopped their car and checked their
mirrors.
On one
occasion, it was a motorcyclist, who, upon seeing the figure in the road,
swerved too abruptly, fell off and broke a limb.
These
incidents were reported to a local Somerset newspaper in the early 1970s and a
man, Mr Unsworth, contacted the newspaper to tell of his strange encounters
with this phantom hitchhiker that occurred in the 1950s. Mr Unsworth was a
lorry driver and the A38 road was a road he regularly drove on in the early
hours of the morning. He was rather embarrassed to tell of his experiences but
felt he needed to.
It was
around 3am and Mr Unsworth was driving back to his depot on the A38. The
weather that morning was wet and damp when Mr Unsworth saw a man trying to flag
down a lift. This man looked soaked to the bone as his longish grey hair was
dripping with water. He was wearing a light coloured overcoat and carrying a
torch and when Mr Unsworth saw him, so he stopped his lorry to offer this man a
lift. The
hitchhiker spoke with a well-educated accent and asked Mr Unsworth to drop him
off by a bridge, which was around 4 miles away. As they travelled along, the
hitchhiker began talking about accidents that happened at the bridge he’d asked
to be dropped off at. He spoke about these gruesome accidents in a gleeful tone
and Mr Unsworth was glad when the hitchhiker finally got out of the lorry.
It was
several days later when, again, Mr Unsworth was travelling on the A38 at 3am in
the morning and it was wet and cold. As he approached the stretch of road where
he had previously picked up the hitchhiker, he was shocked to see the man
again, trying to flag down a lift. For whatever reason, Mr Unsworth gave this
man a lift to the same bridge as the first time. Yet again, this man held the
same strange conversation about accidents at the bridge and spoke about it in
the same gleeful tone.
This was to
happen a third time and Mr Unsworth felt the man was mentally disturbed due to
hitchhiking in such foul weather in the early hours of the morning and to talk
about harrowing accidents. He was relieved not to see the figure again in the
following months.
That was,
until an early murky and rainy morning in November. Mr Unsworth gave him yet
another lift. Mr Unsworth felt this was becoming rather odd but this time the
hitchhiker asked if Mr Unsworth could wait at the bridge for him as he had a
few things he needed to collect and wanted to travel a few miles further after
these items had been collected. So Mr Unsworth let out the hitchhiker and
waited. He waited a good while, but the hitchhiker hadn’t turned back up, so Mr
Unsworth decided to leave.
He had gone
3 miles up the A38 when, all of a sudden, he saw the man he had dropped off at
the bridge! There was no mistaking his overcoat, hair and torch. Mr Unsworth
thought that it would’ve been impossible for the man to cover that 3 mile
distance on foot alone. Also, Mr Unsworth had seen no other cars on the road
since dropping the hitchhiker off.
Mr Unsworth
gave this man a wide berth and as he did, the man jumped right in front of the lorry,
so the lorry had to swerve and Mr Unsworth managed to keep his lorry under
control. He stopped the lorry and got out. What he saw was the figure of the
hitchhiker on the road, shaking his fist and swearing out loud. Mr Unsworth
quickly got back in his cab, feeling the need for some sort of normality as
this situation didn’t make any sense!
Fortunately,
Mr Unsworth was to never see this hitchhiker again.
The A38 has
had many fatal accidents over the years so just who is this phantom hitchhiker?
Just be extra careful if you ever find yourself driving down a lonely stretch
of the A38 in Somerset in the dark……
