The haunting of Exit 44

At the exit where I leave the highway every morning, there is inevitably a car dead on the shoulder. If not at all the way at the actual confluence point, where there is a stoplight, then definitely in the mile leading up to this particular exit.

But why?

It is a slight grade, yes. But not enough to warrant a sign as such. Yet, daily, without fail, some crappy rust-spotted Maxima with temporary tags sits abandoned. Sometimes hazard lights still blink, though mostly not. Or a van. Are they out of gas? Why so many temporary tags? And doesn't some sort of urban legend-like folklore permeate the air where used car buyers congregate, like an eldritch vapor whispering "Don't go on South 75 past Exit 44...you'll never make it."

And maybe there was a Hopewell/Adena curse placed eons ago that said as trespassers neared the Holy Place (http://ohsweb.ohiohistory.org/places/sw12/index.shtml) their conveying animals would weaken and keel over, and maybe that curse has transmuted, because some wise soothy shaman said, "We cannot know, my brothers and sisters, as we grind maize and make tools from smoothed river stones, that conveyances will remain ever thus [points at domesticated mammoth]. Nay, we should have a backup clause in this pup."

But where do these drivers go? Perhaps they just leave their keychains in the ignition and just wander off through spitting snow into the stubbly fields wedged beyond the new CarMax (good luck with that!) and start their lives anew.