Five Things Movies Always Get Wrong about Junkyards

Five Things Movies Always Get Wrong about Junkyards

The junkyard is the one spot that you might want to avoid like the plague or use to find that one part you’re missing for that auto project you’re working on and have almost finished. They can be a treasure trove or a last resting spot for that hunk of junk you’ve been meaning to fix for years on end. Junkyards are essentially the graveyard for cars where they go to sit and rust for years until they finally fall apart, are crushed into something resembling a big iron cube, or are gradually taken apart piece by piece until there’s nothing left but a husk that has no real use to anyone. What they’re not is whatever you see in the movies, which can be a variety of things ranging from the scene of a mass murder to a body dump that criminals use for their own nefarious purposes.

The junkyard is just that, a JUNK, YARD.

5. They’re not impenetrable mazes.

In some movies you see cars stacked to the sky forming walls that block a person’s view in all directions. This might be possible but finding your way through a junkyard is relatively easy so long as you know which way you started from.  Plus the safety factor in stacking items, not just cars, so high becomes an issue after so many vertical feet and could lead to serious accidents that even for a junkyard are not acceptable.

4. There are no bodies waiting to be discovered.

Despite what you see in the movies there are no bodies stuffed in trunks or long-forgotten husks of cars that have been essentially buried by tons and tons of steel. The only bodies you might fight in the junkyard are those of animals that have either used the yard as a place to die or have been otherwise taken out by something that considered them a meal.

3. Most of them are not run by criminals.

There’s nothing to say that a few of them aren’t run by less than savory characters but for the most part they are run as legitimate businesses that are in the practice of dealing with people on a fair and honest basis. Just because a junkyard is the perfect spot to conduct business, mostly because no one thinks twice about such places, doesn’t mean everything they do is criminal in nature.

2. They are not a body disposal service.

While junkyards are known to crush a car now and again for whatever reason the mere fact that they crush one car after another on a daily basis would seem a bit unusual and might warrant the attention of authorities, particularly in missing persons cases. This might seem a bit of a stretch but really, disposing of bodies in this manner is not the most efficient way to deal with the problem.

1. They are not the hubs of activity they are in the movies. 

Junkyards have been featured in many ways in the movies. They’ve seen action, mystery, the occult, and many different uses, but they’re not that busy. The average junkyard will sit untouched for a good length of time until someone actually needs something out of one or another of the cars or until it’s time to start making room for more inventory.

Really, a junkyard is not that exciting.

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