No parking sign
You may stop here briefly to drop off or pick up people or goods, but you must not park and leave the vehicle.
- Group
- Regulatory signs
- The group at a distance
- Mostly round, or a rectangular plate. Stop is the one octagon in the whole group and give way the one triangle. Usually white with a red ring or bar and a black legend. A few, like the shared path sign, are white on blue.
- Does this group carry the law
- Enforceable. Disobeying one is an offence in itself.
- In the sign deck
- 3 questions ask about this sign
What to do when you see it
In the order you do it, from the moment the sign comes into view.
- Stop only long enough to drop off or pick up people or goods.
- Stay with the vehicle, because the point of the rule is that you can move it immediately.
- Keep the stop brief and do not leave the driver seat empty.
- Move on rather than waiting there for someone who has not arrived yet.
Where you see it
Outside schools at pick up time, at hotel and hospital entrances, along shopping strips, and on narrow streets where a parked car would block a lane.
Across the states and territories
The face and the meaning are national. The maximum time you may remain while dropping off, and the fine for overstaying it, are set by each state, territory or council, so the number on the ticket is a local matter.
Tell it apart from these
Both signs at the same size, next to each other, with the one line that separates them. These are the pairs people mix up under time pressure.
- No parkingthis pageNo stopping
This is the pair people get wrong most often. No parking allows a brief stop with you in the car. No stopping allows nothing at all.
No stopping: You must not stop here at all, not even for a moment, unless there is an emergency.
- No parkingthis pageBus lane
A bus lane restricts who may drive in the lane. No parking restricts what you may do once you have stopped.
Bus lane: This lane is for buses during the times shown, so other vehicles must keep out of it.
How the knowledge tests use it
Almost every knowledge test in the country asks the difference between no parking and no stopping in some form. Learn it as a pair rather than as two separate facts.
A real question from the sign deckWhat does this sign mean?
A no parking sign still lets you make a short stop, as long as you drop off or pick up and go, and you stay with the vehicle.
State and territory driver handbooks, parking signs
Try it in a question
The sign tests draw the artwork above the question and ask what it means, which is closer to the way you meet a sign on the road than reading a page about it. They are original questions written for this site rather than an agency's published bank.
More regulatory signs
Mostly white with red or black, and usually round or rectangular.