My four wheels, or why some people get so attached to their cars

No matter how many “horses” there are in our car, we often perceive it as a kind of continuation of ourselves. Many manage to “determine the gender” and give the car a name. The specificity of the relationship between the driver and his own car affects different aspects of life. One of them is that the sense of personal space is changing.

In crime films and, alas, in news reports, you can sometimes see serial killers using their car to commit crimes. For example, Samuel Little, who killed 93 women in the United States, almost always committed his atrocities in a car, which was for him the object of the same manic passion as the murders themselves.

Other captured villains, Ed Kemper and Ted Bundy, also used personal vehicles as the location and even the weapon of the crime. The latter converted his 1968 Volkswagen Beetle to transport victims’ bodies.

Lawrence Paul Mills III, 32, recently arrested by US police, is accused of killing at least three women in 2017. His victims were prostitutes, whom he knocked to death in order to take away the money he himself had previously given for sex services.

In this case, the car became the actual murder weapon. And if Mills is found guilty by the court, he will go down in the history of US justice as the first serial killer whose instrument of crime was officially his own car.

“It has been observed that people who were traumatized in childhood by significant loved ones feel more secure in adulthood with inanimate objects,” comments gestalt therapist Natalya Abalmasova. “That might explain the serial killer’s obsession with their cars. The reverse is also true: those affected by nature and natural disasters (floods, earthquakes, tsunamis) rarely find a safe source of nourishment in nature, relying more on people.”

It is paradoxical that sometimes it was the car that became the reason for the arrest of criminals – and completely unexpected. So the above-mentioned Ted Bundy was stopped by a police officer for a driving violation – and his inadequate reaction, an attempt to escape and a removed seat (for transporting bodies) aroused suspicion. The man had already killed 25 women on his conscience, but at that time the police were not looking for him for these crimes.

Examples with criminals show that in their car they could feel completely safe when they did what they had planned. Crime stories are a vivid illustration of the idea that the car often becomes an extension of our personal space. And it’s not just the attackers.

“My husband often reminds me that a car is just a vehicle, a vehicle. But he is not driving, but I am. And when I close the door and drive out onto the road, it seems to me that this is my “house”, my refuge, which is always with me. There, I can not only maintain a social distance, but allow myself, without hitting the notes, to sing along to the radio in full voice.

The space is organized in a way that suits me, napkins and water where I gave them a place, and my caramels are in the glove compartment. If I have to wait for someone, it does not annoy me – in the car I can always find something to do, even work. And my friend, during the quarantine period, left the apartment for a car to call a psychotherapist and have a session, because she could not be at home alone, ”shares Anna, 38 years old.

“Indeed, the car becomes a “continuation” of a modern urban person who spends a lot of time on the road,” explains Natalia Abalmasova. We are well aware of the boundaries of our physical body. But when we get behind the wheel of a car, we “appear” four wheels instead of two legs, and the legs themselves turn from a means of transportation into tools for driving a car. The boundaries of the body “expand”.

Moreover, it is important for us to feel the dimensions of the car very well in order to avoid collisions with various obstacles. This enhances the feeling of the car as a personal space.”