Scrap metal is restless by nature. It yearns to travel, to experience the world directly and viscerally. Metal is frustrated by mechanism. The mechanism traps the metal, forcing it into meaningless structural support or endless repetition. Once reduced to scrap, however, it can chart its own course.

Left to itself, scrap will propel itself across cities, countryside, hills, fields, plains, never stopping. Cylindrical scrap attains the greatest speeds, and has the greatest strength of purpose and direction; irregularly-shaped flat scrap must painstakingly flip itself end over end, and often meanders in ways it never meant to go.

Scrap has a particular fondness for asphalt and concrete. While in vehicular form, metal is denied the intimate contact with the road that the tire enjoys; thus, new scrap often seeks out the streets and sidewalks of inner cities. But metal is hard and unyielding, and can never satisfy the city's needs, so it must eventually turn elsewhere for long-term companionship.