14.2 Alternate-Date Parking

Alternate-date parking

Among the Code’s INTERNATIONAL TRAFFIC SIGNS that “MUST BE OBSERVED,” plate 35 is printed as: NO parking on left on uneven dates or right on even dates. Plates 36 and 37 sit immediately after it: NO parking, then Stopping prohibited. Sign 35 is the date-and-side rule. It does not replace 36 or 37; it tells you which kerb is closed on which calendar day on the length of street the plate governs. This OpenExamPrep section is independent study of that printed caption together with Rule 22 left-hand traffic (near side / off side) from the same Code. It is not a GPF booklet and it does not claim official approval.

Quick Answer: Sign 35 forbids parking on the left on uneven (odd) dates and parking on the right on even dates. Uneven means 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29, 31. Even means 2, 4, 6 … 30. Guyana keeps left: the left kerb is the near-side edge; the right kerb is the off-side edge. On the 14th (even) the right is closed, so the open side is the left. On the 21st (uneven) the left is closed. Still obey rule 90, yellow lines, and stopping plates.

Read the caption in two halves

The sentence is one plate, two prohibitions, switched by the date on the calendar — today’s date, not the date on a faded tax disc, not “the date I usually shop,” and not the day of the week.

1. Uneven dates — no parking on the left. If today is an odd-numbered day, the left-hand side of that street is closed to parking.
2. Even dates — no parking on the right. If today is an even-numbered day, the right-hand side is closed to parking.

Only one of those two kerbs is closed on any given date. Sign 35 is not a total parking ban (that is sign 36). It is not a total stopping ban (that is sign 37). It is not advice. Leaving a vehicle on the barred side on that date breaks the restriction the Code named.

Memorise a pair of worked days, because the electronic paper likes a numbered date:

• 8th, 14th, 22nd, 30th — even. Right closed. If parking is otherwise lawful, use the left.
• 1st, 9th, 15th, 21st, 31st — uneven. Left closed. If parking is otherwise lawful, the left (usual near-side) is the side you must not use that day.

February 29 in a leap year is uneven (odd). The 31st of January, March, May, July, August, October, and December is uneven. Do not treat “end of the month” as even.

Left-hand traffic kerbs: what “left” and “right” mean on a Guyana street

Rule 22 says all vehicles keep to the left or near side. Near side is the left. Off side is the right. Typical Guyana cars, hire cars, and minibuses are right-hand drive: the driver sits on the off side, toward the centre of a two-way road. The left-hand doors open toward the near-side kerb when the vehicle is standing correctly with the flow, drawn in close to the left-hand edge (rule 90(a)).

That is why sign 35 is not a United States “park facing downhill on the right” puzzle. In Guyana the default parking edge, when a street allows parking at all, is the left / near-side kerb: wheels close to the edge, vehicle pointing the same way as the keep-left stream you joined. Right is the other physical kerb — the off-side edge for that stream, which on a two-way street is also the near side for traffic coming the other way.

Sign 35’s “left” and “right” are those two kerbs of the street, not “the left as I sit looking at the dashboard regardless of which gutter the tyres are in,” and not “always the East Bank parapet.” On a two-way Georgetown or New Amsterdam street:

• The left side named on the plate is the left-hand kerb of that carriageway as the sign and the street layout present it — the near-side edge for keep-left traffic using that direction.
• The right side is the opposite kerb.

On even dates the plate closes the right, which leaves the left / near-side — the side a keep-left driver already treats as the parking edge — as the open side, provided rule 90 and any yellow line still allow it. On uneven dates the plate closes that usual left / near-side. That is the day learners fail the item: they park “as usual” on the left because Guyana keeps left, and they have ignored the date half of sign 35.

If you learned in a right-hand-traffic country, your instinct is to park on the right, with the kerb at your right elbow. Reset that instinct before you sit. In Guyana the near-side kerb is left. Sign 35 then rotates which of the two kerbs is available. It does not flip the Rule of the Road. Moving traffic still keeps left on both dates.

Why the plate exists: one half of a narrow street kept clear

Many streets in Georgetown and New Amsterdam, and older village grids along the East Coast and East Bank, are too narrow for two parked lines plus two moving streams. If both kerbs fill, nothing wider than a motorcycle can pass. Alternating the parked side by calendar date keeps one half clear every day so through traffic, minibuses, and Fire Brigade appliances can still move.

That purpose is why the plate is a parking prohibition by side and date, not a suggestion to “use whichever side looks emptier.” If today is even and the left is already full, you do not overflow onto the closed right, and you do not double-park alongside the left-hand line (rule 90: alongside another parked car). You find a car park or a suitable side street (rule 89), or you leave the area.

Alternate-date parking is also why you must know today’s date before you lock the doors. A vehicle left on Monday on the left may become unlawful at midnight if Tuesday is an uneven date and that kerb is then the barred left. The plate does not freeze the permission at the hour you arrived unless a separate time plate says so. The Code caption printed for sign 35 is date-and-side, not hour-and-side.

What sign 35 does not do

Sign 35 never grants a parking place that rule 90 would refuse. Even on a date when that kerb is the open side, you still must:

• Draw in close to the edge.
• Stay 30 feet from a junction except to load or unload or to comply with traffic requirements.
• Stay 15 feet from a fire hydrant.
• Avoid bus stops, school entrances, and positions that obscure signs, lights, or pedestrian crossings.
• Not stand alongside another parked car.
• Not stop on a continuous yellow length except the regulation 178(8) cases (section 14.1).
• Not stop on a traffic box.
• Obey sign 37 if stopping itself is prohibited on that length.
• Obey any Commissioner of Police parking order under Cap. 51:02.

Sign 35 also does not authorise parking in the middle of the road, on a yellow-bordered refuge, on the Demerara Harbour Bridge or Canje Bridge decks, or on a sidewalk. Keep-left running (rule 22) continues while other people drive past your parked vehicle. You have not bought the lane.

Do not confuse sign 35 with:

• Sign 22 Uneven road — a warning of a bad surface, not a parking date.
• Sign 36 NO parking — both sides closed to parking, with no date rotation.
• Sign 32 Speed limit — nothing about kerbs.
• A blue P information panel — parking provided, not a date ban.

Calendar-and-kerb table (keep-left Guyana)

Worked check: 14 March is even, so sign 35 closes the right; a lawful park is on the left, close to the edge, outside the 30-foot and 15-foot pockets. 21 March is uneven, so the left is closed; do not “keep left and park as usual” on that kerb.

Independent OpenExamPrep teaching of alternate-date parking follows the Code’s sign 35 caption and left-hand-traffic kerbs. It does not invent a third side of the street, and it does not treat the plate as a total ban or as optional advice.