Accidental Passenger

A comedy trope. Alice boards a train to see Bob off; but spends so long saying goodbye, that she is late disembarking, and ends up travelling with Bob, at least until the next stop. Alternatively, Alice might be running in the streets from an attacker, and hides inside a parked van, which drives off, with the driver blissfully unaware. This can lead to the passenger trying to exit the moving vehicle, or if on a train, pulling the communication cord to stop the train. It can result in Not Where They Thought if they didn't realise they moved, or thought they went somewhere different than where they actually went.

This can apply to objects as well as people, if an important object is left behind in a vehicle, or is placed on the roof of a vehicle, which then drives away, and the object becomes unexpected cargo.

For this trope, the focus is on the passenger, who often actively boards the vehicle; the driver of the vehicle may be a Bit Character, or may not be seen at all. Compare Accidental Kidnapping, where the focus is usually on the kidnapper; however, these tropes can overlap. See also Vehicle-Roof Body Disposal, and Outside Ride. If a character unexpectedly ends up in space from having boarded a spacecraft, it's Accidental Astronaut. Compare Little Stowaway, when a child deliberately stows away, with the intention of being transported.

This can be Truth in Television in that people frequently board wrong trains and buses, only realising when it is just too late. A common sight on rail networks such as The London Underground is a group of people taking too long to disembark from a train, leaving members of the group separated by the closing doors, gesturing frantically to each other. Property is also frequently left behind by careless passengers; this trope applies when the property is plot-significant. However, the plot of somebody boarding a vehicle and not expecting it to move at all is less likely to happen in real life.

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Examples: Please take extra care to open the correct folder.

Anime & Manga

• Di Gi Charat:
  • Puchiko gets stranded in America in the Natsuyasumi Special due to getting stuck between some bus seats and being unable to get off.
  • In Di Gi Charat: A Trip to the Planet, Rabi~en~Rose gets one of her rabbit ears stuck in Dejiko's spaceship, causing her to be dragged along for the ride to Planet Di Gi Charat.
• Interviews with Monster Girls: Our dullahan character accidentally had her head and body separated by quite a distance when her body didn't get off of a train quickly enough, while her head was still in her parent's hands.
• Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun: Seo tells Sakura about a time when she was a kid playing with a boy called Okada, and how one day she put him in a back of a truck and said truck suddenly started moving... Seo offhandedly ends the story there, realizing she's telling the wrong one, and she never reveals poor Okada's fate.^note The answer was only revealed in the official fanbook, where it reassures readers that the truck went to a strawberry farm and Okada safely returned and even gave Seo strawberries as a souvenir.
  Sakura: Wait, what happened to Okada-kun?!

Fanfic

• In Prehistoric Park Reimagined chapter South of Heaven, a combined group of acleistorhinus, captorhinus, kahneria, and rothianiscus end up getting brought to the future for display at the titular park completely by accident when, at a time in which the rescue team happen to have their backpacks lying around unzipped on the ground, the animals in question crawl inside in curiosity to see if there's anything inside that they can eat, only for the rescue team to reclaim their bags and zip them closed while the animals are still inside. From there, the animals end up trapped inside the backpacks until the rescue team return home to the safety of the park, at which point they end up in ideal position to join the other rescued contemporary animals from their home period amongst the park's repertoire.

Films — Animated

• Bolt the Wonder Dog hears Penny's cries of distress, which are just recordings that some sound editors are tweaking. Bolt tries to leap through a window, but smacks against the glass, and falls backwards into a shipping box full of packing peanuts. A mail room kid tapes the box shut then sends it to a freight hauler. This is how Bolt suddenly finds himself in New York City, almost four thousand kilometers away from where he started.
• Moana: At the beginning of her journey, Moana finds out that Heihei came as a stowaway in the canoe depot. The rooster panics when he realizes they are in the middle of the sea until she calms him down, telling him that the Ocean is her friend. Big mistake, for Heihei marches into the sea, forcing Moana to jump into the water to save him and almost lose the canoe. She has to put him back in the depot to keep him from walking into the sea again.
• The Road to El Dorado begins when Miguel and Tulio are caught cheating in a dice game, escape from the ensuing angry mob by hiding in two barrels, and are unwittingly loaded onto the ship of Hernán Cortés, where they are caught and imprisoned as stowaways.
• Up: 8-year-old Russell happened to be underneath Carl's house trying to earn his scout badge for assisting the elderly right when Carl launched said house into flight. Since Carl is unable to drop Russell off before getting caught in a storm, Russell tags along for the adventure.

Films — Live-Action

• Abbott And Costello Go To Mars: While hiding from the cops, Orville ends up in the back of a car that then drives off, taking him to a laboratory where an experimental rocket is being tested, ultimately resulting in he and Lester being sent into space.
• The Apple Dumpling Gang: While the three adventurous, orphaned siblings are searching for gold in an abandoned mine, they climb into a mine cart. One of them accidentally steps on the brake handle, unengaging it, making them accidental passengers. The cart then carries them down the mountainside and careens through the town, wreaking havoc as it goes.
• Clockwise: Having narrowly averted becoming an accidental passenger himself when he boards the wrong train, Brian realises that he has left his printed speech behind on the train he had boarded, and tries in vain to chase after it.
• Elf: Infant Buddy ends up at the North Pole by crawling into Santa's bag, right before getting loaded onto the sleigh.
• Last Action Hero: During a Car Chase Shoot-Out in the movie Danny is watching, the golden ticket is activated, making a pack of lit dynamite sticks tossed by the bandits fall from the screen. When Danny notices it, he screams and runs in panic, but is caught by the explosion and everything goes white. He wakes up in Jack Slater's car while the latter is still persecuted.
• In Lion, five-year-old Saroo goes to sleep in an empty train compartment. When he wakes up, the train is moving. He eventually arrives in Calcutta, where he is unable to get a ticket home because no one recognizes the name of his village. It's not until he's an adult that he manages to find his family again.
• In the 1990 film of The Witches, Luke (in mouse form) hides in a dustpan in the hotel kitchen. Mr Stringer picks up the dustpan and brush to clear up a mess at Luke's grandmother's table, conveniently taking him back there.

Literature

• In Around The World With Ant And Bee, Bee's new umbrella is blown out of his hands, and ends up on a crate on a lorry. The crate and umbrella are taken away in a ship, and a plane. Ant and Bee travel around the world looking for the umbrella, which is eventually seen in South America.
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time: When Christopher catches the train to London, a policeman who had spoken to him earlier suddenly boards the train to try to persuade him not to travel. Unfortunately, the train doors then close, and the policeman is forced to travel to the next stop. Meanwhile, Christopher hides in the train and makes it to London.
• Invoked in The Da Vinci Code. Sophie discovers a GPS tracker, attaches it to a bar of soap, and throws it on to a passing truck, which is later stopped by the police.
• Harry Potter:
  • Played with in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. When Harry and Cedric touch the Triwizard cup, they find themselves unexpectedly transported to a graveyard. This is especially tragic for Cedric, who is casually murdered by Voldemort.
  • Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: After Malfoy has paralysed Harry on the train, and left him there, the train starts returning to London. Tonks rescues him after a short time, and they jump off the moving train.
• A House Inside Out: Lured by the smell of bacon-flavoured crisps, Sam the mouse gets into a motorbike carrier, and when Kevin the bike's owner rides away, Sam finds himself transported to a desolate waste ground outside a factory. He manages to get home by returning to the bike carrier, for Kevin to travel home again.
• Played with in The Magician's Nephew. When Polly and Digory escape from Jadis the witch by touching their magic rings to take them back to the Wood Between the Worlds, Jadis travels with them, because she is hanging on to Polly's hair. This is unexpected to all of them. They later use this to try to return Jadis to her own world and end up taking Uncle Andrew, a cabby, and a horse as well.
• Otherside Picnic: In the anime-only story, this is achieved using an elevator. In episode 10, Akari is lost in interstitial space when they were meant to meet at a building to do Korean BBQ. Toriko and Sorawo determine to go in and find her, only to be joined at the last second by Kozakura, still thinking they were going to use the elevator as an elevator and go up to the restaurant, only to find out too late that she's being dragged to interstitial space with the others.
• In the children's book The Tale Of Georgie Grub, Georgie, who Hates Baths, hides in a trash bin. However, the binmen then pick up the trash bin and dump him into their truck.
• Warrior Cats: In Tigerheart's Shadow, Tigerheart hides from some humans in a pile of luggage. Turns out the luggage is on a cart, which gets loaded onto a nearby train, trapping Tigerheart along for the ride. Thankfully, it brings him to the city his mate has fled to.

Live-Action TV

• Doctor Who: Several characters become passengers on the TARDIS by accident, with some going on to become full-time companions of the Doctor.
  • In "Logopolis", Tegan Jovanka ends up a passenger with the Doctor after she mistakes the TARDIS for a real police box. When she sees what lies behind the seemingly ordinary exterior, her curiosity is piqued and she ventures inside. The Doctor then takes off with her on board.
  • In one episode, the Tenth Doctor takes off with both his companion Rose Tyler and her mother Jackie on board. Rose alerts the Doctor to Jackie's presence when they're already in flight — Jackie is not amused.
  • In "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship", Brian Williams ends up taking an unexpected trip to the future with his son Rory and daughter-in-law Amy when the TARDIS materializes around them to whisk them off on another adventure.
  • At the end of "The Woman Who Fell to Earth", Yaz Khan, Ryan Sinclair, and Graham O'Brien all get accidentally transported along with the Doctor into space when she tries to lock onto the location of her TARDIS, leaving the episode on a Cliffhanger. Luckily, they get rescued at the top of the next episode.
• Keeping Up Appearances: When Hyacinth is desperate not to be seen by Mrs Barker-Finch, she climbs on to an open-backed lorry. The driver gets in and drives off, completely unaware of Hyacinth's calls of "Driver, I wish to alight!".
• In Full House episode "Come Fly With Me", due to having a "crummy summer" and their big sister DJ apparently not caring about them, Stephanie and Michelle decide to go inside a plane to meet a cute foreign boy. When the plane started moving, Steph tried to stop the plane but the stewardess thinks she's just a nervous flier. Not wanting to get in trouble for stowing away, the girls decide to wait until the plane flies to what they thought was Oakland (which is across the bay from San Francisco). But the stewardess announces the plane's 14-hour trip to Auckland, New Zealand.
  Steph: Auckland, New Zealand?!
  Michelle: Fourteen hours?
  [They both scream as the plane takes off.]
• Mr. Bean:
  • "Mr. Bean Goes to Town": Mr Bean has an itchy foot. He takes off his sock and shoe, and puts them on the roof of a parked car, which drives away. Only the roof of the car is visible to the audience, and the driver is Behind the Black.
  • "Mind the Baby, Mr. Bean": As well as the Accidental Kidnapping plot of the baby's pram attaching itself to Mr Bean's car, Mr Bean later ties the pram to a convenient object at the funfair. Unfortunately, he has tied it to the moving part of a flying car ride, which flies into the air, taking the pram and the baby with it.
  • The final sketch of the series in "Hair By Mr. Bean of London" has Mr. Bean attempt to sneak onto a passenger train by hiding inside a mail bag and sneaking across the platform. Unfortunately, the train leaves before he gets aboard, and then the station crew retrieve the bag and load it onto its train, bound for Russia, with Bean still inside the bag.
• 2point4 Children: In "Two Years Before The Mast", the Porter family comes onboard a cruise ship to say goodbye to Aunt Tina, who has booked herself on a luxury cruise there. However, before they can disembark, the ship sets sail, leading to them trying to hide their presence from the rest of the ship.

Video Games

• Elite Beat Agents: In the "Highway Star" stage, a dog named Sam falls asleep on a pickup truck and has to run all the way back home.

Web Video

• Jet Lag: The Game: In season three, episode six, Adam and Ben board a train to catch Sam in a game of tag. While they succeed in this goal, Adam fails to get off the train before the doors lock, sending him away from his destination with his pursuers on board.

Web Animation

• Battle for Dream Island: The Power of Two: in "Fishes and Dishes", The Strongest Team on Earth accidentally takes TV as collateral when they've made off with Are You Okay's robo-sea-monster.

Western Animation

• Bugs Bunny: In Mississippi Hare, Bugs falls asleep in a cotton field. A very distracted worker mistakes his tail for a ball of cotton and picks him. Bugs wakes up among the real cotton and inside a riverboat going down the Mississippi River.
• Dennis the Menace:
  • In "Train That Boy", Dennis goes on a train to visit his grandmother. When he accidentally leaves his suitcase behind, Mr. Wilson goes onboard the train to give it to him. Unfortunately, Dennis refuses to let him off, saying his mom told him never to step off of a moving vehicle, resulting in Mr. Wilson having to come with Dennis and his parents on the train, much to Mr. Wilson's chagrin. At the end of the episode, the roles are reversed; when Mr. Wilson goes on the train back home, Dennis leaves his suitcase on the train and goes back for it, resulting in Mr. Wilson having to spend the ride back with Dennis.
  • In "Boy Ahoy!", the Wilsons leave for a cruise, but Dennis stays on the ship too long and gets taken along for the ride. He's regarded as a stowaway, forcing Mr. Wilson to hide him. But after losing his clothes and forced to wear his wife's dress and caught with Dennis, Mr. Wilson is the one accused of being the stowaway and is made to work onboard the ship. When it returns to dock and the captain realizes the misunderstanding, he gives the Wilsons free tickets on another cruise. However, the shipping company also gives the Mitchells tickets to the same ship after the Dennis mishap. Mr. Wilson snaps and swims out into the ocean rather than go on another cruise with Dennis.
• Josie and the Pussycats: Alexandra Cabot has a knack for misdirection that kicks off the plot.
  • In "The Midas Mix-Up," the 'Cats have a gig at a ski lodge, and take to the slopes before their performance. When Alexandra sabotages a trail marker, the whole gang end up skiing off a cliff and crash into a sky tram car. This is how they find themselves at the castle of The Villain Count Midas.
  • In "A Greenthumb Is Not A Goldfinger," Alexandra routes Josie onto a cargo plane rather than the passenger aircraft. Everyone else hustles aboard as well, taking Alexandra with them. Somehow, no one notices that only themselves and cargo occupy the plane's interior until Valerie makes an observation.
    Valerie: If I didn't know better, I'd swear we were flying over the Amazon.
    Alexandra: We are flying over the Amazon.
• South Park: In "Osama bin Laden Has Farty Pants," the boys receive a goat from their Afghan pen pals, but when their parents won't let them keep it, they sneak the goat onto a U.S. military plane to send it back there (claiming the goat is Stevie Nicks going to a USO show). However, the boys don't get off the plane in time and end up going to Afghanistan with the goat.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: In "Idiot Box", Squidward hops in the box SpongeBob and Patrick left on the curb and pretends it's a racecar. However, the box gets picked up by a garbage truck at the same time he "hits the gas", preventing him from realizing anything's amiss until he reaches the dump.

Real Life

• Many invasive fish, crabs, and other marine organisms have traveled to new environments by accidentally hitching a ride in a ship's ballast compartment. Similarly, many species of invasive insects, spiders, lizards, snakes, and rodents have been accidentally introduced around the globe after being accidentally packed in the cargo holds of ships and more recently aircraft.
• About a year after the 2011 tsunami that struck Japan, a rowboat was found floating off the Oregon coast on the other side of the Pacific Ocean. Inside the partially-flooded boat were several live fish that were native to Japanese waters.
• In 2015 Romain Jantot was flying an ultra-light aircraft hundreds of feet in the air when he noticed a cat clinging for dear life to the plane wing. He landed promptly and helped the cat off the wing. The video had 40 million views.

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