July 19, 2005

Today in Automotive History

1935 Parking Meters Debut

The first automatic parking meter in the U.S., the Park-O-Meter invented by Carlton Magee, was installed in Oklahoma City by the Dual Parking Meter Company. Twenty-foot spaces were painted on the pavement, and a parking meter that accepted nickels was planted in the concrete at the head of each space. The city paid for the meters with funds collected from them. Today parking meters are big business. Companies offer digital parking meters, smart parking meters, and, even more remarkably, user-friendly parking meters. The user-friendly parking meters are an attempt to stem the tide of "violent confrontations" between users and their meters.

Posted by Quality Weenie at July 19, 2005 08:08 AM | TrackBack
Comments

And then the fines started building up to the point that people could no longer visit their favorite cities.

Stupid 2 hour only parking meters screwing up my trips!

Posted by: contagion at July 19, 2005 08:21 AM

So...where's the contact info for this "Carlton Magee" fellow...

Posted by: Ogre at July 19, 2005 10:25 AM

I don't mind parking meters so much. They do a good job of allocating a scarce resource.

Posted by: Harvey at July 20, 2005 09:43 AM