This Visibility-Blocking Device Is A Wheel Clamp For The Digital Age

The one and only good thing about parking wardens is that sometimes – sometimes – they can cut you some slack and let you off a fine if they feel like it. But even that narrow flicker of hope could be extinguished by a new invention that almost completely blocks the view out of the windscreen.

If you’re caught violating parking regs, the enforcement agent can simply pull up and place a new device called The Barnacle on your windscreen. As you’d imagine, it uses Masters of the Universe-strength suckers to hold the unit in place – and it’s locked on by a coded panel.

After that it’s a case of calling a number, coughing up your fine to get hold of a code to unlock the device, and then – this is possibly the most irritating bit – you have to drive to a set location to give the enforcement company their Barnacle back. Because that’s exactly what you’d feel like doing, instead of just tossing it into the nearest bin.

The unit comes from a New York-based firm called Ideas That Stick. The firm’s president, Kevin Dougherty, is quoted by parkingtoday.com – no, really, it exists – as saying the Barnacle “makes it easier for everyone involved.”

“From an administrative standpoint, we wanted to help agencies reduce the overall cost of managing their enforcement activities,” he said. “By making the device compact and stackable, we were able to free up scarce storage space in customer facilities and allow smaller enforcement vehicles to carry more of the devices.

“Its design also allows for ‘green’ deployment methods, transporting the devices in a handcart or electric scooters. The immobilised vehicle is also towable when the device is deployed, which can eliminate a duplication of effort and resources for the enforcing agency.”

As it can be deployed from the kerb on either side of the car, as well as being lightweight and needing no bending to pick it up, it’s less likely to cause workplace injuries, the company says.

We’re still a little hazy on how a faceless, remorseless, automated system is better for the driver who overstayed his parking slot by five minutes, but hey. Anything that prevents some greasy, unwashed guy in a tow truck getting anywhere near your car can’t be that bad. Can it?