History Main / TrappedInASinkingCar

* The ''Animation/{{Lamput}}'' episode "Water" mostly takes place in Fat Doc and Slim Doc's car, with a thirsty Lamput in the back being driven to their lab from a desert road. The car eventually falls over a cliff and into the ocean, where it starts to flood. The docs go to the back of the vehicle with Lamput, who consumes the water that fills the car; the docs follow suit, and the car later floats to the surface, where Lamput and the scientists continue their chase swimming.

* The BMW short film [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZD-rKtjNLU Hostage]] is about a [[RaceAgainstTheClock race]] to find a [[DamselInDistress woman trapped]] in a car trunk that has been parked at water's edge before the tide rolls in. Of course, Creator/CliveOwen comes [[BigDamnHeroes to rescue]] her JustInTime.

* ''Film/AtomicBlonde''. Lorraine has [[HopeSpot seemingly escaped pursuit]] with [[LivingMacGuffin Spyglass]] when the car she's driving is suddenly rammed off the road into the river. [[spoiler:The car has been shot full of holes so there's no chance of an air pocket forming, and Spyglass gets his foot caught and Lorraine is unable to free her, causing him to drown.]]

* ''Film/MysteriousDoctorSatan'' (1940 FilmSerial). A variation is used for an end-of-chapter CliffHanger when TheHero and DamselInDistress are in a diving chamber and an underwater explosion breaks a porthole. The air pocket as the water rushes in leads to more plausible survival [[CliffhangerCopout than some cliffhangers]].

* ''Series/MidsomerMurders'': "Dark Secrets" opens with a flashback to 1975 where a brother and sister are involved in an accident where their speeding car runs off the road and into the river; leaving them both trapped in the sinking car. This accident proves pivotal to several murders that take place 25 years later.

* ''Film/JurassicWorldFallenKingdom''. When the volcano erupts, Claire and Franklin trying hiding from a hungry dinosaur in the gyrosphere and end up rolling off a cliff into the ocean. The next minute and a half is [[TheOner one take from the inside]] as they scramble to get out while water rushes inside, volcanic debris splash around them and Owen swims down to help them escape.

* In ''Film/{{Paddington 2}}'', the titular bear gets trapped in a train car sinking into a river. Mary dives after him but they both cannot get the locked train door to open. Cue the BigDamnHeroes moment for Knuckles and his friends.

* In a TheDogBitesBack moment in ''Film/{{Sunset}}'', Alperin's badly abused chauffeur Arthur drives the car containing Alperin and himself off the pier and into the marina. Alperin manages to escape the car but Arthur [[DidntThinkThisThrough can't swim]] and has to be saved from drowning by Tom Mix.

** Mac in the season 5 pilot, "[[Recap/CSINYS05E01 Veritas]]". A hostage-taker kidnaps him and abandons him and the car in the river. Naturally, Mac escapes.

* ''Series/{{CSI}}'': In "Bloodsport", one VictimOfTheWeek is a woman who is trapped in a sinking car by a [[JammedSeatbelts jammed seatbelt]], and who drowns after she accidentally shoots a man who is attempting to rescue her.

** Mac in the season 5 pilot. A hostage-taker kidnapped him and the guy abandoned Mac and the car in the river. Naturally, Mac escapes.
** In season 7's 'Party Down,' a killer locks 20 partygoers in the back of a semi-truck and deliberately drives it into the Hudson. Fortunately only four people drown.

** In an earlier episode, a body is found in a submerged car. It's eventually revealed that [[spoiler:the victim was in an interracial lesbian relationship, and she and her girlfriend were being pursued by the girlfriend's insanely possessive brother when they found that the bridge ahead of them was out. With nowhere else to go and unwilling to risk being caught by the brother, the pair decided to [[TogetherInDeath commit suicide together]] by driving off a bridge -- only it was the 1930s, cars were a lot more open than they are now, and there were no seatbelts, so one of the girls somehow got out, or was pulled out by the force of the water, and survived -- and then spent the rest of her life battling guilt over the fact that her girlfriend died and she didn't.]]