A clever parking light

For some reason best known to itself, authority sometimes insists on parked cars being lit even in illuminated city streets, with resultant police action when car owners omit to turn on their lamps. For conserving tired batteries the Parkalite is worth consideration. In the past pre-set clockwork mechanisms for switching on the side or parking lamps at lighting-up time existed, but they were mechanical in action and you had to remember to pre-set them. The pleasure at seeing, or contemplating, the look on the face of the policeman who was confronted a minute before lighting-up time with an empty unlit car and the next moment with the same car legally illuminated was clouded by the thought that the device might not have been wound-up or correctly re-set or might fail to function for some other reason.

The Parkalite achieves the same end far more simply. It consists of a clip-on parking light for 6 or 12-volt operation, incorporating a photo-electric switch that puts it on automatically when the degree of daylight falls below a certain level.

Even those with good batteries may hesitate to leave a parking lamp alight for 24 hours, and providing the Parkalite functions in the darker areas of lit streets it would seem to offer automatic freedom from flat batteries and parking convictions for all save those who live directly under street lamps. The makers are D. C. Marsh & Sons, Ltd., Gosport Street, Lymington, Hampshire.—W. B.