This is the shocking moment a tree snake slithered across a car’s rearview mirror while a woman drove.

The 2ft-long serpent emerged behind the mirror of a pickup truck as a female and her friend travelled on a road in Prachuap Khiri Khan province, Thailand.

After noticing the creature, the driver pulled over immediately and scrambled out of the car while screaming with her female friend before calling the animal rescuers for help.

The driver, who did not want to be named, said: ‘I was driving when it happened. We were just talking about our trip when I saw the snake. I told everybody to open the door and leave. My friend could not believe it and just kept on screaming.’

When the rescue team arrived, they had to search for the snake’s hiding space as it squeezed through the seats to evade being caught.

Volunteers spent an hour spraying insecticide inside the car hoping the snake would be lured out by the stench and show up, but there were no signs of the animal.

As the snake wranglers could not find the serpent, the car had to be towed to a nearby mechanic where repair workers took some of its parts out to make sure that the animal had gone.

The snake was not found in the car so the rescuers assumed that it had escaped into the forest on the road while the two women waited for them.