What sign (placard) indicates the method of parking a vehicle?

Explanation

Plate 3; a vehicle with the wheels of one side up on the raised kerb.

Plate 3 shows a vehicle at an angle with the wheels of one side on the raised surface beside the street. This image is an instruction, not a description: within the zone of the parking sign, you must place the vehicle exactly as drawn on the plate. If the plate shows the vehicle half up on the kerb, parking wholly within the carriageway is an offence, and vice versa.

The reason for this rule is the geometry of the street. In narrow passages, if every vehicle parks with its full width inside the carriageway, the width left for two-way traffic — and more importantly for an ambulance and a fire engine — is insufficient. On the other hand, parking on the pavement without regulation drives pedestrians into the middle of the road. The parking-method plate prescribes exactly that point of balance, and that is why it must be followed to the letter.

Worth memorising: a parking-method plate always shows the vehicle's relationship to the edge and the kerb. If the image on a plate does not show the vehicle's relationship to the kerb or the pavement edge, that plate is not about parking.

• Plate 1 shows a vehicle with a struck-through red symbol; its subject is a restriction on the vehicle's condition, not how to place it beside the carriageway. • Plate 2 shows a vehicle beside an uneven, sunken shoulder; this is the "dangerous shoulder" warning and in fact tells you to keep away from the edge, not to park there. • Plate 4 shows the vehicle on a bridge-like structure, and its relationship to a kerb or pavement is not visible; so it prescribes no parking method. • Plate 5 is merely the silhouette of a passenger car and specifies which type of vehicle the main sign covers; it determines the type of vehicle, not how it is positioned.

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