(no subject)

[jack]

I never really thought about it, but I realised I fairly habitually see people parking on double yellow for short periods of time, and assumed it was normal and hence ok, but I _also_ assumed that it was forbidden so you should never do it. And hence, I implicitly assumed that there was some magic circumstances that everyone else knew that made it ok, but I never knew. It never occurred to me that maybe people were just wrong.

Comments

[gerald_duck]

As I understand it, the law recognises many different ways a vehicle might at any given moment not be moving. IANAL, but what I've managed to infer from various places over the years is:

• Waiting: what normal people call "parking". Leaving your vehicle somewhere because you have no present use for it.
  
• Loading: Putting your vehicle close to somewhere so you can move goods back or forth between that place and the vehicle.
  
• Picking up and setting down: Like loading, but for people and their luggage.
  
• Stationary: Trying to go somewhere, but prevented by traffic in front of you, a red light or similar impediment.
  
• Directed to by an authorised person: A police officer (or traffic officer) tells you to.
  
• An emergency: Any extraordinary event which means it would be difficult or dangerous to move.

Yellow lines only prohibit "waiting". Subject to the general catch-all prohibition on causing an obstruction, you can do any of the other things where waiting is prohibited.

Yellow stripes on the kerb can only occur where there are yellow lines. They extend the prohibition to "loading". So you can't stop a van there and offload a pile of boxes, but a taxi could still pick up a fare, including putting their shopping bags in the boot.

White zig-zags at pedestrian crossings, yellow zig-zags outside schools, the round blue signs with the red X, Motorways etc. prohibit "stopping". That means you can't park, you can't load and you also can't pick up or set down.

Yellow cross-hatched boxes prohibit stopping, but also prohibit entering the box before your exit is clear. At busy junctions, this tends to prevent people becoming Stationary within the box. At level crossings, where there is only one exit for any given entrance, it prevents people becoming Stationary.

The police can specifically tell you to move your car, or halt your car, practically anywhere.

And finally, modulo negligence, it's not your fault if your car breaks down, so it's legal to be broken down anywhere. And breaking down is even a legitimate excuse for not going where a police officer tells you to.


All this has various implications that I'm disappointed so few people understand. For example, it's worse to stop on the zig zags of a pedestrian crossing to set down a passenger than to stop on a yellow line with yellow marks on the kerb. And a taxi driver may stop on a yellow line to pick up a fare, but not to wait for a fare. And so on.

[jack]

Thank you, that's really helpful. It's about what I thought, but a lot more comprehensive.

[simont]

Am I right in inferring from this that the law draws no particular distinction between waiting in your car (perhaps even with the engine running), and parking your car and wandering off elsewhere? You imply (unless I've misread) that the latter still counts as 'waiting', which suggests they're considered equivalent.

I'd have thought common sense would suggest quite a big difference between the two when it comes to parking restrictions, because parking restrictions are largely concerned with not obstructing other uses of the road, and if a car is potentially obstructing something then it surely makes a big difference whether the driver is sitting right there ready to move it at need.

[jack]

That's what I thought, but from my previous asking, it started to sound like that might make sense, but isn't actually officially endorsed anywhere.

(In which case, it might be the sort of departure from traffic laws which is actually morally ok, whether or not you're likely to get done for it, if you know you can get out of the way if you need to, and the road isn't permanently blocked by such idling cars.)

[gerald_duck]

So far as I can see, if there's nobody in the car it's definitely Stopped, but having someone in the car doesn't mean it's not Stopped.

To pick an extreme example, nobody thinks it's legal to cook lunch in a motorhome in a pay and display bay without buying a ticket, even though the driver remains in the vehicle throughout.

Personally, I'd say the only way it makes a difference whether or not the driver is present is when considering whether or not the vehicle is causing an obstruction. For example, before now I've stopped on a quiet single-track road to consult a map. Nobody could get past in either direction, but I was prepared to move off at a moment's notice if anybody arrived. I think that means I wasn't causing an obstruction. If I'd instead left my car there while I went to spend the evening in a nearby friend's farmhouse, the police would rightly have my guts for garters.

[highlyeccentric]

Australian road rules make a simpler distinction: "no parking" means you cannot leave your car there, nor may you sit in the car for more than two minutes; "no stopping" means you cannot pull up there at all unless there's an emergency or something. There's no category of "you can pick up people but not goods". Presumably if your goods take more than two minutes to unload you have to find a parking zone.

There used to be an additional category of "no standing" in NSW, but i can't remember how or if it differed from No Stopping.

[jack]

That makes a lot of sense!

[hairyears]

There's no distinction in the letter of the law between a parked car with no-one in it, and a stationary vehicle with a driver - even if the engine is running.

However, the enforcement of the law is very different: unattended vehicles on double yellow lines get ticketed immediately, but in all other circumstances the enforcement officer (usually a traffic warden) must establish intent. That is to say: they wait 3-5 minutes for some activity that looks like loading, picking up, assisting a disabled person, or essential road-safety activities like checking the boot is properly closed.