In which picture did the driver correctly stop his car to drop off passengers?

Explanation

In the left picture.

Stopping on a pedestrian crossing and closer than 5 metres to it is prohibited, and setting down a passenger creates no exception to that prohibition.

In picture 1 the car is standing beside the kerb and outside the prohibited zone; the "5 m" arrow shows exactly the minimum distance the law requires. In picture 2 the blue van has stopped right on the yellow pedestrian markings and has blocked the pedestrians' path — which means a pedestrian is forced to pass beside the car and out into the carriageway.

The safety reason for this rule is "visibility". A car stopped near a crossing acts like a curtain: a pedestrian emerging from behind it is not seen until the last moment, and the driver in the adjacent lane has no time to brake. Those few metres of distance are exactly what gives both parties time to react; most pedestrian accidents on crossings begin with just such a blocked view.

The common exam trap is to take the duration of the stop as the criterion and think "a few seconds to set a passenger down does no harm". The law's criterion is the place of stopping, not its duration; the moment your wheels are on the crossing, the offence has been committed.

• Tempting, because both cars are standing neatly beside the kerb, but picture 2 is a stop on a pedestrian crossing and is not acceptable in any way. • In the right-hand picture the van has stopped exactly on the pedestrian crossing; that is the clearest form of a prohibited stop, not a correct one.

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