History Main / VehicleVanish

* Used as a prank on ''TriggerHappyTv''. One of the cast asks some passersby to take his picture while he stands on a median strip. After a slow moving van passes in front of him, he'd gone (having jumped inside the van) leaving some very confused people holding his camera.

* Used in the title sequence of ''{{Bottom}}'' as Richie disappears behind a fast moving bus.

* Deliberately invoked in the ''MissionImpossible'' episode "Leona" in order to convince a mobster that he is seeing visions of his dead wife. Casey, disguised as the dead wife, is pulled into the van as it passes, causing her 'vanish' in the moment she is out of sight.

* A subtle variant occurs early in ''AhMyGoddess: TheMovie'', where Morgan has her back to the camera and is looking at some posters, passing students block the camera's view of that student, and Morgan is gone. This varies in that Morgan isn't actually trying to hide or shake pursuit, and hasn't even been properly introduced yet as a character.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer''. Although involving a person walking past the camera as opposed to a vehicle, there's one in TheTeaser of "Passion". Buffy is dancing with Xander at the Bronze. A man crosses in front of the camera, temporarily blocking the view, and when he's gone by Angelus is standing there.

* ''Series/{{CSI NY}}'': In "Vacation Getaway", Shane Casey holds a hostage at gunpoint and drags her across the street. A bus passes between Casey and Mac and Stella. When the bus passes, the hostage is there but Casey has vanished.

* Somehow, Jiyu's comic relief friends do this with a train to get her away from her DarkMagicalGirl Counterpart (after being beaten soundly) in the second episode of ''{{Jubei-chan}}'' season 2.

* Justified in ''TheXFiles'' with a shapeshifting alien, who simply changes his face while being interviewed by a detective when a truck passes between him and the security camera. The detective looks up from his notepad and sees an apparently different person, who casually walks away.

* Occurs near the end of ''{{X-Play}}'''s "Passion of the Christ 2: Judgement Day" parody. Jesus is standing on a sidewalk, a car passes by and he's gone. Watch it [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ei7kGqpHOjw#t=2m47s here]].

* This occurs in the first scene of Eden of the East, where the main character uses it to elude a police woman after grabbing her attention away from a young woman who had thrown something over the Whitehouse fence.

* Unusual variant in the BusterKeaton film ''Film/{{Cops}}''-- to get away from a pursuing crowd of policeman, Buster does a ''one-armed grab'' on a fairly fast-moving truck and is yanked away! Strong shoulders!

* ClintEastwood in TheWestern ''Film/PaleRider'' does this with a train, one of several StealthHiBye scenes that suggest he's a supernatural figure. However the train is moving slowly so there's plenty of time for him to have simply ridden away, leaving the whole question ambiguous.

!!Examples:

* 'TabletopGame/SLAIndustries''. When an Ebon reaches Formulae Rank 10 he starts seeing Necanthropes watching him from a distance. After a vehicle passes between the Ebon and the Necanthrope watcher and blocks the Ebon's view, the Necanthrope will have disappeared.

* The Trainman disappears behind a train this way, in the beginning of ''TheMatrixRevolutions''. Justified: he's a computer program that runs the virtual train station, giving him nigh-omnipotence.

* In ''BillyElliot'', Billy's friend vanishes like this after they have a conversation. A strange use of this trope, as it happens randomly in the middle of a gentle family comedy about a boy's dreams of being a dancer.

* Charles Bronson's character in ''OnceUponATimeInTheWest'' makes his first appearance this way.

* At the end of ''{{Wanted}}'', Wesley Gibson is seen, battered and bleeding, checking the ATM to see if he still has a fuckload of money sitting in the bank for him, his account is pretty much empty, and Wesley collapses in front of the machine. A truck passes by, and suddenly...
* ''Film/TrueLies''
* ''ChowYunFat'' does this alot on ''TheReplacementKillers''

* Used early on in ''HomeAlone 3''.

* A subtle variant occurs early in Ah! My Goddess: The Movie, where Morgan has her back to the camera and is looking at some posters, passing students block the camera's view of that student, and Morgan is gone. This varies in that Morgan isn't actually trying to hide or shake pursuit, and hasn't even been properly introduced yet as a character.

* Used as a prank on TriggerHappyTv. One of the cast asks some passersby to take his picture while he stands on a median strip. After a slow moving van passes in front of him, he'd gone (having jumped inside the van) leaving some very confused people holding his camera.

* Inverted in ''Film/HarryPotterAndTheHalfBloodPrince Part II'': Harry is waiting for Dumbledore at a tube station, and looks across at the deserted platform opposite. A train goes past, and Dumbledore only appears once it's gone.

* The Trainman disappears behind a train this way, in the beginning of ''TheMatrixRevolutions''.

* Deliberately invoked in the ''MissionImpossible'' episode "Leona" in order to convince a mobster that he is seeing visions of his dead wife. Casey, disguised as the dead wife, is pulled into the van as it passes, causing her 'vanish' in the moment she she is out of sight.

* Justified in an ''TheXFiles'' episode with a shapeshifting alien, who simply changes his face while being interviewed by a detective when a truck passes between him and the security camera. The detective looks up from his notepad and sees an apparently different person, who casually walks away.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': As the Doctor walks away in the minsode "The Great Detective", a hansom cab passes between him and Vestra, Jenny and Strax. When it has gone, he has vanished.
* ''Series/{{Castle}}'': In "Dial M for Mayor", Castle meets with his mysterious informanat in a parking garage. A car passes between the two of them, blinding Castle with its headlights. When it has passed, the informant is gone.

* The Trainman disappears behind a train this way, in the beginning of ''Film/TheMatrix: Revolutions''.

* In ''Film/{{Spider-Man}} 3'' Peter leaves a confrontation with Harry in a diner, then once he's across the street glances back; Harry gives him a sinister smile, then a truck passes and Harry is gone from the diner. How he achieved this is unclear, as there's nothing in his goblin powers that suggest super speed. Perhaps he just ducked under the table?

* The kid in ''CopAndAHalf'' disappears this way.

* Clever variation in ''TheLivingDaylights'' - a KGB agent has Kara under surveillance. He watches her enter a phone booth, then, after a streetcar lumbers by between them, a black Aston-Martin parked nearby drives off. It takes the agent a short while to realize she'd put her hat and coat over a cello case in the booth and gotten away with Bond in the car.

[[AC: RealLife]]
* Artist Ryan Estrada just recently made a blog post indicating he made a mad dash into a shop, so that it would appear he did this to the people who were watching him watching them.