Thread: petrol rationing

G'day W,
This may be of no relevance whatever

Western Australia used to have a law that all vehicles had to have a switch on the rear of the car, next to a tail-light, with which the lights could be turned on or off. It was illegal to have the switch controlled by the driver from the driving position.

Two hypotheses I have heard as an explanation for this rather ludicrous legislation are:
1. It allowed anyone, including kindly policemen, to turn on your parking lights at night, if the car was parked in a dark place not lit by street-lighting.
2. It made it "impossible" for a car being chased by Plod to turn off its lights and give him the slip - this is the explanation I favour.

Perhaps your Land-Rovers were equipped similarly. I don't understand how petrol rationing can be linked to this switch - what have you heard?

Cheers Charlie

Originally Posted by chazza

.............I don't understand how petrol rationing can be linked to this switch - what have you heard?

Cheers Charlie

Probably nothing but it made me read the Thread.

2. It made it "impossible" for a car being chased by Plod to turn off its lights and give him the slip - this is the explanation I favour.
- what have you heard?

Exactly that.That because of petrol rationing you weren't allowed to use your car at certain times or at night. I really don't know. That's why I'm asking. W.

I am pretty sure petrol rationing had ended by 1950 . One of the main reasons Menzies won the 49 federal election was: he promised to end petrol rationing .

I checked my grills and the holes are there, but no evidence of switches having been fitted

Mike

I was always under the impression that the tail lights controlled by an outside fitted switch (which was common law in many Australian states) was to ensure that all drivers knew that their lights were working when they turned them on.
Cars that were parked on any roadway were to be illuminated by "parking lights" during all the hours of darkness that they were parked.
Early Mercedes could switch on one side at a time, in that European laws stated that a stationary vehicle parked on a roadside must have the "off side" lights displayed, and the "off side", of course varied from left to right depending on which side of the road that country drove.
British and European cars had separate park lights that showed all the time along with the headlights, whereas the American idea was that the park lights went out when the head lights came on. Made it easy for us "car spotting" kids to recognise an oncoming car by its headlights.
I cannot help with the switch at the front though as I never came across that one.
Regards
Glen

I agree with the above. Petrol rationing ended in 1949 with the election of Menzies - and there would have been few Landrovers in Australia by then. In most states it was a requirement to have the tail light switch at the tail light so you knew it was working, but I think this requirement ended about WW2, certainly not fitted to teh 1948 Austin we had, although it was fitted to all the prewar cars we had.

It is possible that the switch was to operate a one sided low wattage parking light as noted in an earlier post - the requirement to have parking lights on whenever parked on a public road after dark was only repealed about the time I got my licence in 1959, probably as a result of the requirement for all vehicles (not just new ones) to be fitted with rear reflectors in about 1958. (Interesting note here - the FJ holden came out with rear reflectors in chrome fins each side a few years before this - many new owners replaced the reflectors with tail lights, being unsatisfied with a single central light. They then had to refit the reflectors they had removed a couple of years later!

Interesting points Mike, Glen and John!

I do know that my 1950 Morris Six, '50 Morris Minor and my '51 Land-Rover had the switch fitted; all registered in WA but my 52 Wolseley 6/80 and a '57 Morris Minor van I owned, did not have them,

Cheers Charlie

Thank you for your replies. OK nothing to do with petrol rationing. Those holes shall remain a mystery for the time being. W.