Car abandonment

Amateur motorists find their situation enhanced by a new element of interest.

Amateur motorists are those who do not have a driver and who drive themselves. One day, they discovered the automobile; they discovered a vocation. And they enthusiastically said to their friends: “You have no idea how convenient this is. We go, we come, we circulate, we are free; we are independent of taxi drivers and exempt from the jostling of the metro.”

But, subsequently, their enthusiasm is less sincere. Although they have a fast and personal mode of transportation, they always arrive an hour or two late for the appointments they give; or they don't arrive at all. Exceptional things have happened to them: they had a discussion with the driver of another car, or with their own engine (who is always in a bad mood when the boss is in a hurry); they entered a one-way street the wrong way and a town sergeant asked them for their driver's license; or even, in a narrow lane, they were rigorously supervised by dump trucks and handcarts, which is a bad condition for speed.

Regardless of the delays, which are very annoying for the hostess, the amateur motorist lacks peace of mind when dining in town. At every moment, he gets up from the table and says: “Wait a minute... I beg your pardon,” without worrying about the smiles he provokes. He's going to take a look in the street to see if someone hasn't stolen his Citron and if his lanterns (front and back) are on, and if the cover is still on the hood, so that the engine don't catch a cold from the cold of the night.

Then he comes and sits down again, but there is still something wrong. He is worried because, the next day, he has an appointment before the police court and, the day after that, with the agent of the Insurance Company, because of a drunk who wanted to pass between his two wheels from before. But that doesn’t stop him from repeating: “You have no idea how convenient that is; we go, we come, we circulate, we are free. »

The amateur motorist will no longer go to dinner in town; or he will take the metro and lose his status as a motorist, which is a degradation. A new police regulation, or rather an old regulation which has come into force, orders all drivers to stay behind the wheel when the car is parked along the sidewalk. Otherwise, the car is taken to the pound and the motorist is prosecuted for abandoning a car, now considered as abandoning a child.

When the motorist goes to see his friends, he will no longer get on, but he will whistle and his friends will get off on the sidewalk. Likewise when he is thirsty, he will not occupy a table in the café; to comply with the regulations, he will have his drink brought to his seat. And, when he wants to hear a play, he will install a T.S.F. set in his car.

But there will be recreational motorists who deliberately leave their cars on the street and enter houses to do what they have to do. Then, when they come out, they will breathe a sigh of relief to find that their car has been stopped by the officers, which antiphrase means that it has been put into motion and taken to the impound lot. Then they will regain all their sincerity to say, while walking joyfully on foot on the sidewalk:

It's extremely practical, this means of transport. That's all there is to practice in Paris. We go, we come, we circulate, we are free...

G. DE LA FOUCHARDIÈRE.