The city where cars go to die

Something that's struck me here is the proliferation of half-buried car parts on street corners—mostly axles, but also camshafts and other parts that I can't really identify.

I thought that they were to protect pedestrians from corner-cutting cars, but I've been told that they are actually there to protect the buildings (!).

The poetic part of me sees them as the bones of long-dead vehicles, sticking out of the ground as if the city were built on a vehicle burial ground.