Are we the last generation to associate the “white van” with danger?

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Consistent-Camp5359@reddit (OP)

Do you have candy?

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DirtRight9309@reddit

the Oakland County Child Killer was very, very real and very scary. Highly recommend Don’t Talk to Strangers if you like True Crime

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This_hoe_dumb@reddit

Nah, my gen z kids picked the fear up from me. Haha

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angrybirdseller@reddit

Ford transit van instead of Econoline van with crabby hub caps! Funny in the 1970s, people used to pimp their vans out!

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5WattBulb@reddit

We totally need to bring back the airbrushed winged Valkrie riding a polar bear with lightning in the background motif!

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Least-Back-2666@reddit

I saw one of these once. Even had the 70s brown motif. The outside was painted with a chick at a waterfall throwing an engagement ring..😂

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ptero_smack_dyl@reddit

My son (25) and I even have a song we made up about it that goes “always trust a man in a big white van he’s got your caaaaannnndy.” Giggle every time we sing it.

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BoboliBurt@reddit

If not, then the kids will learn soon enough.

Im assuming a crappy van with no windows and big sliding door that can fly open to reveal a creep (or a harmless tradesman) will always be sketchy.

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Elandycamino@reddit

Windowless van= rape van, Van with windows = consensual sex van. Used to have a white e250 with windows, it was so full of tools, a couch and a motorcycle i barely had room for any activities.

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Consistent-Camp5359@reddit (OP)

If the windowless van is rockin’ send the cops a nockin’?

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Spaceboy779@reddit

I put a G in front, so now it's a "grape van." I get the old ones the grocery store is throwing out and call them organic. Good little side hustle.

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Consistent-Camp5359@reddit (OP)

Omg 🤣

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AbleDanger12@reddit

The kids nowadays order strangers to bring shit to them, or bring them somewhere 😂

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Consistent-Camp5359@reddit (OP)

I ordered an uber one day. Saw the guy driving around looking for me. He sent chills down my spine. Canceled the ride.

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DoctorFenix@reddit

White vans are where people live now!

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Consistent-Camp5359@reddit (OP)

MIL got one to live in. If my “living in it” you mean living in our apartment and the van living in the parking lot.

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Left-Escape@reddit

Now all they’re are filled with Van-life Bloggers…

gif

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Consistent-Camp5359@reddit (OP)

My MIL went “van life” and got a damn brigade van to live in. She said she was going to live in it.

Why does she live in our apartment?

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Infamous-Thought-765@reddit

There was a rumor going around in my school around 1990 about "the man in the white corvette." An older ahole girl changed it to a white Lamborghini, but why were they always white?

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Consistent-Camp5359@reddit (OP)

Colors were non existent then I guess 🤷🏼‍♀️

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icecreemsamwich@reddit

I’m in Seattle and feel like white vans are so common (well all over the west coast) you figure they’re either homeless/houseless folks or service vehicles.

What’s weirder to me is that people actually WANT to full time live in vans nowadays. Like with customized full builds and something to be proud or boastful of.

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Consistent-Camp5359@reddit (OP)

My MIL bought a giant van to live in. No clue why that includes our apartment.

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angrybirdseller@reddit

🫥Gary Ridgeway in van, all walk home now!

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Consistent-Camp5359@reddit (OP)

I don’t know. I learned about it from unsolved mysteries.

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Funkopedia@reddit

But was the white van ever actually a threat though, or did we pick that up entirely from movies?

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I used to think it was an urban legend but then a friend's sister really did get abducted by a guy in one in the mid-2010s as she was walking home from middle school. Thankfully she managed to escape, the guy was caught, and now she's an adult with a happy marriage and a great career. Wish all horror stories could end that well. 😔

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BeefSupremeeeeee@reddit

That or they're trying to sell you some terrible speakers.

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Golden_Enby@reddit

I hope not. It should be passed down.

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CheezeLoueez08@reddit

No it shouldn’t. Vast majority of kidnappings are by someone known to the kid. Like a non custodial parent. And the majority of the time the kids are returned safe and sound. Stranger danger actually screwed us over because when we actually were being harmed, by someone we knew, we gaslit ourselves by saying it’s not bad because it’s not a stranger. There’s nothing inherently dangerous about a white van.

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Golden_Enby@reddit

I get what you're saying, but given that child predators are still a huge problem, it's important to teach kids about the dangers. This time around, the white van is now a man pretending to be a 13 year old in chat rooms. While it's true that relatives are often the ones to do bad things to children, kids are still getting groomed online.

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MeatAndBourbon@reddit

Being abducted by a stranger is a vanishingly rare occurrence that basically will never happen and distrusting strangers causes significant stress. It's less harmful to not worry about it.

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thagrrrl79@reddit

Nope because there are still creepers with white vans out there. Little over a decade ago, the high school I lived next to went on lock down because kids had reported a guy in a beat-up white van driving stupid slow & circling the block. Turned into a foot chase with the cops wherein creeper fired at them, hitting one in the arm, so they fired on him, killing him.

So, no, still very much a thing.

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CheezeLoueez08@reddit

It happening once doesn’t make it “very much a thing”. And how do you know he was doing something illegal? How do you know he was a pedophile trying to kidnap a kid? You don’t. He likely fired back because he was defending himself. Might’ve been a jerk. Or paranoid. But you don’t know he was a criminal out to harm anyone.

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CuriousLands@reddit

Yeah I guess there's a reason they became the poster car for creeps, right. Especially of the abducting kind, cos you gotta stick the victim somewhere and where better than a plain van with blocked-out windows

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Consistent-Camp5359@reddit (OP)

Yikes!

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thagrrrl79@reddit

Yeah, it sucked. I managed an apartment building for folks with developmental disabilities. One had severe PTSD from his time in the military. Every monthly inspection we had to talk to him about not blocking his windows with pillows/mattresses/boards. This incident didn't help, especially as I think said tenant watched the cops shoot the guy.

Oh, and I have my own PTSD with guns due to being a block away when a drive by happened on the club I'd just been at, so I was a freaking wreck. lol

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TheDoorViking@reddit

It was fucking CompuServe for me. I got warned about strangers but not the online ones. Got asked to send some pretty weird pictures. I guess that's still happening.

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_undercover_brotha@reddit

My teens call them predator vans. They’re alright.

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Difficult_Cupcake764@reddit

Still true, although now it’s ICE

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MrsAshleyStark@reddit

Nah millennials have it too. Gen z son knows as well.

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kayla622@reddit

As long as Forensic Files remains accessible the white stranger danger van will always be relevant. In fact, any sort of van with an open back (seats removed, or just a big empty space) and no windows (or blacked out windows) screams possible danger.

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Out-There1013@reddit

Now I feel like I have to just forget about removing the back seats I never use in my white Uplander.

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nosleeptilbroccoli@reddit

I drive a white ford e150 cargo van for my business (and honestly it’s so reliable and utilitarian I like driving it anyways) and I took off my company logo magnets while waiting on new ones, so for now I’m driving an unmarked white van with tinted windows. Nearly every person I’ve met with today has made a creepy van / abduction comment.

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bluemitersaw@reddit

Ya know. You have the option for a super easy Halloween get up. Take off your signs and park it in your driveway. Scribble "free candy" poorly with some easy wash paint. Hand out candy to kids from the back while wearing a Jason mask. Play creepy music over the speakers for added effect.

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IAm5toned@reddit

I drove one for years, as my company vehicle for my own contracting biz. fully outfitted E150 service van. Used to take the 3 kids trick or treating in it, and the looks we'd get in some of the more affluent subdivisions were priceless 😂😂😂

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Consistent-Camp5359@reddit (OP)

Do you have candy?

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nosleeptilbroccoli@reddit

No but nobody ever seems to attend my free Christian puppet show whenever I put signs on my van for that either. 🤣

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GrumpyKaeKae@reddit

With Van Life being a thing now, im surprised anyone said anything. Unless its our generation you were talking to.

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shponglespore@reddit

Nope. ICE is making sure of that.

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ThreeCraftPee@reddit

In Chicago at that time of Living color we were all horribly terrified that homie the clown would come and get us in that van. With a brick in his sock. Because that makes total sense.

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Ag1980ag@reddit

Yes! It wasn’t just my school! We were told and believed that the white van had “Ha-Ha!” Painted on it so we were always on the lookout for the Ha-ha van!

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Sunshinehaiku@reddit

Alive and well where I live.

https://www.reddit.com/r/regina/s/q0c14GrfEH

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psilosophist@reddit

I associate it with dudes trying to sell me speakers in a gas station.

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DAM5150@reddit

do the speaker scammers use the same vans? are they rentals?

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DDrewit@reddit

Are you talking about the van with the 2 dudes selling speakers?

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pterodactylize@reddit

Well after reading these comments, I'm going to get a vinyl wrap all over my work van now🤣

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Sad-Poetry7237@reddit

White van moved online

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Interesting_Dingo_88@reddit

Who can afford to give out free candy in this economy??

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LDawnBurges@reddit

There’s a show on ID called ‘Man with a Van’…. I make my kids & grandkids watch it with me!🤣🤣🤣

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ailish@reddit

I came of age with the DC sniper and I lived very near all that. It formed my opinion of unmarked white vans that persists to this day.

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Chartreuseshutters@reddit

Dunno, but my dog definitely thinks that they are bad news.

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ThoughtfullyLazy@reddit

ICE is making sure a whole new generation will grow up associated unmarked white vans with danger.

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PinkLady1983@reddit

My husband always calls them pervert vans. 😂

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userannon720@reddit

My son, who is in his early 20s now. Was always told as a child don't get in the van without seeing the goods first. After about age 15, he was told to just get in the van and shut up and don't ruin it for the rest of us. Last van he got into returned him after 45 mins straight of talk about some animie show he was watching. A bunch of amateurs didn't have duct tape. Ffs.

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ReceptionMuch3790@reddit

Nope

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TheEschatonSucks@reddit

Ngl I associate the white van with scam speakers

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myrichphitzwell@reddit

Ice is bringing it back

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_Toolgirl_@reddit

My 12 and 9 year old tell me anytime they see a white van.

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HeelsOfTarAndGranite@reddit

If you watch modern Korean dramas you’ll see people getting hit all the time by white trucks of doom. Sort of similar?

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JediNeo101@reddit

I think so, because sometime in the 2000s it was taken over by people selling speakers out of a white van.

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Can_I_Read@reddit

The kids openly joke about Diddy parties and baby oil. White vans aren’t on the same level.

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GrumpyKaeKae@reddit

OK, but has anyone here ever been actually chased by one as a kid? I was. It was scary as hell!

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Calbebes@reddit

Nope, my Z/Alpha kid has inherited the fear!

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CompletelyBedWasted@reddit

In an online delivery and "vanlife" living, yes.

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ThepalehorseRiderr@reddit

Seems like nobody owns full size vans anymore. They're all commercial vehicles now.

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des1gnbot@reddit

I hope so! Remember when the police were so damn busy looking for the DC Sniper in white vans that they overlooked the multiple reports of a blue Chevy caprice?

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Aselleus@reddit

I didn't realise how many white vans there were until I started paying attention during that time

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jjj666jjj666jjj@reddit

Nope

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Erika_Blumenkraft@reddit

No, because of ICE.

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NW_Forester@reddit

When I see a white van I associate that with someone trying to sell shitty speakers of a fake brand and a BS MSRP printed on the box (because that's totally what high end speakers do).

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spderweb@reddit

They're all 3rd party delivery companies and contractors now.

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PhoneJazz@reddit

LOL. Many of us have seen enough true crime to know that when it comes to kids, the danger is coming from inside the house.

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FrebTheRat@reddit

I don't see "conversion vans" anymore. Those were the really scary ones. Regular white vans are just painters, plumbers, and amazon subcontractors.

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jambr380@reddit

I remember running from a white van when I was with my cousin when we were in like 3rd grade. They were legit chasing us. We told his mom when we got home, but nobody really thought much of it. I guess that kind of says it all about our independence level when we were kids.

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Ginger_Snaps_Back@reddit

Makes me think of this SNL sketch about stranger danger.

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full_of_ghosts@reddit

It was black vans in my neighborhood.

But another part of the local myth was that there were good people who drove around protecting kids from the evil black van people. They drove red cars with black trim/stripes/accents.

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