[vb-saan]

Very interesting thread. Seldom we come across a discussion which is socially relevant and entertaining at the same time.

Some comments from my side:

Originally Posted by Spitfire

On the Bangalore Traffic Police Facebook Page one of the users asked the below question:

1. If there is no "No Parking" sign, does that mean that it's okay to park there?
2. Or is everywhere a no parking zone unless there is a parking board?

Bangalore Traffic Police Answered:

1. No.
2. Yes.

I think Bangalore Traffic Police is perfectly correct above. And is the right thing to do in a progressive society.

Agreed. The police is perfectly correct with the response. But even in Bangalore, I have seen police vehicles parked on the roadside where with no signboards whatsoever. In a progressive society, the law makers / protectors should show the way for the ordinary citizens to follow. Is that happening in Bangalore?

Originally Posted by Spitfire

I have observed the same in a lot of other countries.

Just curious, can you please list a few countries with the said rules?

Here in Singapore, even slight misalignment from traffic rules are not tolerated, and I have seen private cars parked on the roadsides of unmarked residential areas.

I checked on some parking rules here in Singapore, and this is what I found (and from my limited knowledge, these are quite universal):

• Parallel continuous white lines in the center of a two-way road
No parking on either side of the road. Vehicles are not allowed to cross these lines

• One continuous yellow line along the side of the road
No parking between 7 am and 7 pm on this side of the road, except on Sundays and Public Holidays

• Two continuous yellow lines along the side of the road
No parking at any time at this side of the road

• One zig-zag yellow line along the side of the road
No parking at any time except for immediate picking up or dropping off of passengers at this side of the road.

• Double zig-zag yellow lines along the side of the road
No parking or stopping at any time at this side of the road.

• Continuous single wide yellow line on the right of the left lane
Bus lane that is restricted to other traffic, except on a Sunday or public holiday, between 7.30 a.m. to 9.30 a.m. and 4.30 p.m. to 7.00 p.m. on a weekday and 7.30 a.m. to 9.30 a.m. and 11.30 a.m. to 2.00 p.m. on a Saturday. (and that includes bikes!)

• Continuous single wide yellow line combined with a single red line on the right of the left lane
Bus lane that is restricted to other traffic between 7.30 a.m. 8.00 p.m. except on a Sunday or a public holiday.

• Discontinuous single wide yellow line combined or not with a single discontinuous red line on the right of the left lane
Part of the above bus lanes that allowed to be used by vehicles turning left during restricted hours.

Now do we have any guidelines like above for the citizens to follow – on how to park and where to park?

Originally Posted by Spitfire

We in India are still backward in our thought process and still think in a very selfish way.

If rules are transparently laid out and well-implemented, I don’t see any scope for selfish behavior, especially with public/state property.

[anoopap]

Originally Posted by Spitfire

I am always at peace with myself man.

But sad to see uncalled personal remarks. So I am avoiding replying to my own thread.

Some even went to the extent of saying that I do all this activism because I don't have anything else to do. Imagine the grudge some of them hold against me.

It may be because the way you had put comments sounds kind of aggressive or rather big generalisation. It doesnt look like "at peace". No one has any grudges against anyone. Just that others infer from the way you communicate.

By the way, I didnt know such rules existed on parking. Next time I may look out for that board.

[DukeSan27]

If we read this:

"14. PARKING OF THE VEHICLE
Every driver of a motor vehicle parking on any road shall park in such a way that it does not cause or is not likely to cause danger, obstruction or undue inconvenience to other road users and if the manner or parking is indicated by any sign board or markings on the road side, he shall park his vehicle in such manner. "

someone can easily intrepret that if there is no signage telling you in what manner to park, then you can't park.

But wait... here's what a faq on BTP site says:

"I got fined for parking violation. But board was at least 20 m away from where I parked?

It is not possible to put one board for each vehicle. “No parking” is notified by gazette notifications and then boards are erected. Each board indicates that roughly 50 m each side of boards is no-parking area. That is why boards are put 100 m apart."

So "No Parking" requires a notification then board.

Go figure...

[supremeBaleno]

@vb-san, that is a pretty exhaustive list of parking-rules. And since licensing is strict in S'pore, am sure all drivers are aware of the timings associated with each type of road-marking and thus park correctly.

Originally Posted by DukeSan27

If we read this: Every driver of a motor vehicle parking on any road shall park in such a way that it does not cause or is not likely to cause danger, obstruction or undue inconvenience to other road users and if the manner or parking is indicated by any sign board or markings on the road side, he shall park his vehicle in such manner. "

I believe the way to interpret this is :
1) the first part means your parking should not be violating any of their sub-clauses on parking - adherence to this will guarantee that you are not causing danger/obstruction/inconvenience to others.
2) over and above this, if there is a signBoard indicating how parking is to be done, it takes precedence. Eg. you have found a small side-lane to park and you are not near the bend neither are you blocking a gate etc, but if there is a "No Parking" sign there, you cannot park.

Originally Posted by DukeSan27

So "No Parking" requires a notification then board. Go figure...

Maybe they put this in the gazette and since most of us dont read the gazette, are not aware. But in Chennai, the cops do have NoParking boards in place where they lock/tow illegally parked cars - that much has to be given to them.

Ofcourse, the way they implement legal-parking often is in violation of the MV Act. An apt example is the lane near ApolloHosp that I mentioned earlier. They have marked the right side of the road for parking, which means vehicles coming from Apollo will be parked there on wrong side of the road, which is a violation of their own 2(ix) clause.

[honeybee]

Originally Posted by vb-san

If rules are transparently laid out ...

I sometimes think only the lines on the roads are transparently laid out.

Originally Posted by DukeSan27

someone can easily intrepret that if there is no signage telling you in what manner to park, then you can't park.

I concur with supremebaleno's interpretation here. The rule does not prevent parking in the absence of a sign. It actually means that you can park at a place if it's not explicitly prohibited (of course subject to the other conditions such as not creating a hazard etc).

Parking within 10 meters (?) of a turn or of a bus stop are also prohibited by law, so you won't find explicit signs indicating the same. Same goes for parking in front of gates or other paths used by people, which falls under the obstruction list. This also means that you cannot legally double park in a street (thereby causing a hazard and inconvenience to other road users) even if all you want to do is grab a medicine from the shop across the road. And in this case, technically, your car could be towed away. I wish the cops exercised these rights more rigorously.

[noopster]

vb-san, your post made me nostalgic for the time I had to cram all that stuff up for my SG driving license (still valid, though I don't live there anymore!)

Spitfire, this is an interesting thread you've started, so please don't go off on some emotional trip . We're having fun, a little heat is generated now and then, that's all in good fun and for the sake of learning something you didn't know before!

[supremeBaleno]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Progressive societies provide proper facilities/alternatives before banning a certain behavior. The primary problem with our government rules is that, it only hands out restrictions, but makes no attempt to provide alternatives.First, provide enough legal parking areas. If you ban parking everywhere, then citizens have no choice but break it.

Uncanny coincidence, but last week I saw activity from the Govt. in streamlining things at 2 places in India that are as similar as chalk and cheese.

At my small town in Kerala, last Sunday they not only relocated the bus-stops at the 4-way junction away from each other to untangle the traffic mess, but were also painting bus-bays. Might not be a big deal for developed countries, but I felt it was indeed a big step forward - enforce it and things should be for the better.

And on reaching Chennai Monday, what do I see ? They have painted auto-parking bays on Haddows road and the height of surprise was seeing the "unrully" Chennai autos parked in the bays. They also provided marked car-park slots on the same road where cars were parked orderly. The whole Haddows road which usually would be a mess (lots of visitors to the Passport office), looked disciplined.

Now you could say that this is just the initial enthusiasm of a new Govt - but still it is a step forward - I am an optimist. Now if a car-guy still parks on the wrong side of Haddows road, go ahead and fine him or tow away his car.

Another thing that gladdened my heart was the absence of barricades on OMR this week - I could never fathom why they would position these killers at random places on what is supposed to be a means of rapid transport aka IT corridor. I hope these dont come up again.

Originally Posted by Samurai

No, it is not the citizen's thought process that is at fault.

Indeed. Sometimes I think we are being too harsh on ourselves, for no fault of ours. Yeah, we have a sloppy licensing system, most of us dont know the basic traffic rules, dont drive in lanes etc. But look closer and you would see that we are also one of the most harassed road-users.

• A driver in the US/EU/AU/SI etc takes lanes-marked roads as a given, unlike us where we have to mentally divide the road into lanes and then drive accordingly.
• Drivers in the west have to just focus on other drivers (mostly cars, trucks and the rare bike) who drive only in the correct lane, unlike us who have to look out for cattle, jaywalkers, bikes/tractors coming in the wrong direction.
• They dont have to dodge potholes or killer-barricades that pop up all of a sudden. When the biker in front of us sees a pothole at the last moment, it is instinctive to dodge it by moving to left/right - this could at times lead to accidents and loss of life. Guys in the west don't need to worry about this.
• We could go on and on...

So, yeah we need to improve. And it would also be good if we could take up issues we see with the authorities. But given that almost everything with our system is wrong, if a person decides to take each issue with the authorities, he would not have time for anything else.

Hopefully things will improve and the small steps we see are a harbinger of good times to come in the near future (atleast for the next generation).

[sumathindra]

After a basic search on "No Parking" topic landed on this page and hence posting a query info here. Mods please post it appropriately if not here.

The picture is of the 18th Main road on Jayanagar 4th T block. For almost a decade now I have parked multiple times on the stretch marked in red. Not once have I seen a "No Parking" board and not a single cop in sight.

Today around 2 PM as usual I parked on the stretch and was walking back when I saw a maroon Skoda (parked in front of the white car, removed while I pictured this) with a "parking ticket" pasted on the driver window. A few cars ahead also had stickers pasted on them. I pondered for a while and go back to my car and park it on the next parallel road.

The question I want to ask is:

1. What is the procedure for BTP to erect "no parking" boards?
2. The "no parking" board in question for this location is bang on the corner of the junction and one cannot make out which direction it points to!
3. BTP are now diving deep within residential areas to erect these "no parking" boards to increase revenue.
4. Do the cops come under pressure by certain residents for such actions?

Can somebody throw some light here?

[rjstyles69]

Originally Posted by sumathindra

The question I want to ask is:

1. What is the procedure for BTP to erect "no parking" boards?
2. The "no parking" board in question for this location is bang on the corner of the junction and one cannot make out which direction it points to!
3. BTP are now diving deep within residential areas to erect these "no parking" boards to increase revenue.
4. Do the cops come under pressure by certain residents for such actions?

Can somebody throw some light here?

Post your questions with this image on the BTP home page in FB and you definitely will receive a response.

Unless a road from a residential area is being used an alternate/arterial road for the main road the cops usually don't put up no parking signs.