Which vehicle is allowed to stop in the area covered by these signs?

Explanation

The yellow car bearing the "disabled" sign.

The round blue sign with a red cross is "stopping prohibited", and within its zone of effect even a brief halt is not permitted. But beneath it a supplementary plate is fitted showing a struck-through wheelchair symbol; the meaning of that plate is that the prohibition above does not apply to vehicles bearing the "disabled" sign.

So the scene has two cars and their positions differ. The red car bears no marking and is standing within the sign's zone, that is, it is committing an offence. The yellow car has displayed the "disabled" sign and is exactly the vehicle that the supplementary plate has excepted from the prohibition, so its stop is lawful.

The general rule to take from this question is: supplementary plates beneath a main sign change its scope, and without reading them you cannot judge the main sign. A supplementary plate can specify the zone of effect, the hours of validity, the type of vehicle or the excepted group. Get into the habit of reading every sign together with the plate beneath it, not separately.

A practical point matters too: the exception belongs to a vehicle bearing the official "disabled" sign, and displaying that sign arbitrarily on a car that does not meet the legal conditions is itself an offence.

• The red car bears no excepting marking and is standing within the zone of the "stopping prohibited" sign. • "Both cars" means you have treated the red car as permitted too, whereas the exception is only for a vehicle bearing the "disabled" sign. • "Neither" ignores the supplementary plate beneath the main sign; it is that plate which takes a vehicle bearing the "disabled" sign out of the prohibition.

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