(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]

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!