(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.