On Tuesday morning, Jess Knowles carried her 20-month-old son Rico out of her terraced Victorian home in southwest London in a mad rush, conscious that she probably could not waste a minute if she was to make it on time to her child's hospital appointment.
The stay-at-home mum was greeted by a disastrous sight after she walked over to the driver's side of her black Jeep Night Eagle, a sports utility vehicle (SUV) that she uses through her disabled father's mobility allowance — two deflated tyres.
After initially fearing that the tyres had been slashed, Knowles, 36, found that the valve caps had been stuffed to make them deflate, one with sunflower seeds and the other with crushed shards of pasta — a simple yet effective foil that meant that she could not make her son's appointment.
Knowles's car was one of over 40 SUVs and sports cars on the narrow tree-lined streets of Sands End to be targeted on Monday night by the Tyre Extinguishers, a group of activists aiming to "make it impossible" for city dwellers to drive "polluting death machines".
The group, which launched in 2021, is a decentralised movement, with instructions on how to deflate a tyre with something as small as a lentil available on their website along with leaflets to be placed on people's cars to explain the action.
CCTV obtained by The Times showed three men wearing baseball caps tinkering with tyre valves in Sands End on Monday night, with the whole operation lasting just under a minute for each car.
"It's so bad. They said that they'd keep doing it unless you change your vehicle," Knowles said. "I'm looking out the window at night just to see if they're outside. I don't want anyone near my vehicle. They don't know why people need a vehicle."
Knowles did not display her badge when she parks at home because she has a residency permit, leaving her a target in the eyes of the Tyre Extinguishers, who claim to not target mobility vehicles if they see a disabled badge.
