Cars in the Lockdown

Cars as Garden Sheds and Other Uses

In these days of sparse traffic, even if volumes are slowly increasing, I’ve come to note certain features of the vehicle use that still persists.

I leave to one side the obvious – the great numbers of delivery vans chasing after their time slots, and the ghostly empty (at most times of the day) buses.

There are people going about their lawful shopping business, or driving lawfully short distances to enjoy exercise in some open space. But there’s another subset of car user: young men, usually alone, driving fast, with loud sound systems. They give the impression of driving for recreation or escape: lockdown has ushered in a speed-lover’s paradise of many empty streets. It is disconcerting, sometimes alarming, to cycle along these streets (perhaps at greater than usual speed oneself) and to be cut up by the sudden approach of one of these accelerating cars.

One or two observations suggest a more sinister purpose for some of these solitary fast journeys. I’ve seen people in urgent conversation through windows of cars momentarily stopped. I’ve seen someone jogging towards me, only to halt by an open car window, hand something over, and jog away again. The car immediately drove off, at speed, of course. Can it be that the journeys of drug dealers from client to client have just become more conspicuous in lockdown?

A more harmless use: cars as garden sheds. These days it is a common sight to see folk of all ages just sitting in parked cars, reading, smoking, chatting on their phones. The car is an obvious place of retreat, if one lives in a crowded flat with little or no outside space, especially as sitting on a bench in any public space risks a shoo-away by police or park keeper.

May 2020