Here in South Africa we have this phenomenon! The car guard! Yes, believe it or not, when you park your car in most shopping centre parking lots here today there is the ever-present car guard. If you don’t see him when you park your car he tends to materialise the second you return to your car and try to reverse out of the parking place!
There will be this gesticulating person in your rear view mirror telling you when to reverse out and when to not! Yes, they expect a tip for doing this too! They claim to have watched your car all the time you were away from it and rightly deserve something for it.
As you might already know South Africa is notorious for its high crime rate. The car guard has evolved due to the high instance of theft of and from vehicles parked in parking lots in the past. I must admit though that since the advent of the car guard car there has been a dramatic drop in this type of crime.
As you can see in my photos I have parked my car at this small shopping centre while shopping for groceries this morning. There are about half a dozen of these car guards here and I met the one looking after my car. His name is David and he gave me permission to photograph him. He is from the Democratic Republic Of Congo and is actually a refugee from his own country as well as all the other car guards here. Most of these guys do car guard work because they can’t find jobs anywhere.
Credit: My own blog and photos.