Patent ID: 7861562

Claim:
A vehicle mountable retractable cable device, comprising: walls defining a housing with an aperture; a reel operatively disposed in the housing for spring-biased rotation; a cable threaded through the aperture of the housing, the cable having a first end secured to the reel and a second end external the housing terminated by a head of dimension greater than a diameter of the aperture; and ratchet operable in cooperation with the reel to enable ratcheted rotation of the reel in a first direction during user extraction of the cable from the housing; wherein the ratchet is further operable at periodic intervals of the ratcheted rotation of the reel to enable, when at said periodic intervals, optional reversal of reel rotation from the first direction to a second direction opposite the first by the user relieving the cable of tension to cease cable extraction and for enabling the reel spring-biased retraction of the cable.