14.1 Where Parking and Stopping Are Prohibited
Key Takeaways
- Sign 36 (NO parking) forbids leaving the vehicle parked on that stretch; sign 37 (Stopping prohibited) is stricter and forbids even a brief halt.
- Rule 89 of the Guyana Road Traffic Code: do not park in a main road if you can use a car park or a suitable side street.
- Rule 90: stand only if drawn in close to the edge; not within 30 feet of a junction except to load or unload or to comply with traffic requirements; not within 15 feet of a fire hydrant; not as a hazard (bus stops, school entrances, or so as to obscure signs, lights or crossings); not alongside another parked car.
- A continuous yellow line left of the centre, as viewed in the direction of travel, prohibits stopping except for approved road works that cannot be done elsewhere, boarding or alighting if a lay-by, parapet or verge is not practicable, and fire-brigade, ambulance or police use.
- Cap. 51:02 lets the Commissioner of Police appoint parking places and prohibit or restrict parking; an empty kerb is not automatically a lawful bay.
Where parking and stopping are prohibited
The April 2025 Guyana Road Traffic Code groups Parking and Stopping as rules 89, 90 and 91 in the special motor-vehicle cluster (rules 68 to 94). The same Code’s INTERNATIONAL TRAFFIC SIGNS list names plate 36 NO parking and plate 37 Stopping prohibited. The Learner/Driver Theoretical Programme reprints regulation 178 of the Motor Vehicles and Road Traffic Regulations, Cap. 51:02, including the continuous yellow no-stopping line and its three exceptions. This OpenExamPrep section is independent study of those published parking and stopping topics. It is not a Guyana Police Force (GPF) booklet, not a claim of official approval or partnership, and not a substitute for the three-book package issued from Traffic Headquarters, Eve Leary.
Quick Answer: Parking means leaving the vehicle standing. Stopping means bringing it to a halt, even briefly. Sign 36 forbids parking. Sign 37 forbids stopping and is the stricter plate. A continuous yellow line left of the centre, as viewed in your direction of travel, also prohibits stopping, except approved road works that cannot be done without stopping on that length, boarding or alighting if a lay-by, road parapet or verge is not practicable, and fire brigade, ambulance or police use. Rule 89: do not park on a main road if you can use a car park or a suitable side street. Rule 90: draw in close to the edge; stay 30 feet from a junction except load/unload or traffic requirements; stay 15 feet from a fire hydrant; do not create a hazard; do not stand alongside another parked car.
Parking is not the same as stopping
A GPF electronic item that uses both words is testing whether you treat them as synonyms. They are not.
Stopping is the act of bringing the vehicle to rest. You stop at a red light, at a STOP line, for a School Safety Patrol, or to let a passenger put a foot on the parapet. The halt may last a few seconds. The engine may still be running. You may still be in the seat.
Parking is leaving the vehicle standing as a stationary object occupying the carriageway or the kerb: you have finished the journey (or that leg of it), you are not waiting only because traffic or a signal requires it, and typically you are about to leave the vehicle or have already left it. Rule 91 (section 14.3) is written for that moment: engine off, hand brake on, before you leave.
Why the exam cares: a plate or a yellow line that forbids stopping also forbids parking, because you cannot park without first stopping. A plate that forbids only parking still leaves room, on some streets, for a brief halt that is not parking — unless another rule (a yellow line, a traffic box, a junction clearance, a constable) independently forbids the halt. Never invent a “two-minute shopping” exception the Code did not print.
Sign 36 NO parking versus sign 37 Stopping prohibited
The Code numbers the plates. Learn the captions as printed, not as a foreign ISO nickname.
- Sign 36 — NO parking. You must not park on that stretch. Leaving the vehicle standing there is the prohibition the plate names.
- Sign 37 — Stopping prohibited. You must not stop there. A brief halt to buy bread, to wait for a passenger who is still in a shop, or to “just sit with the engine running” is still a stop. Sign 37 is the stricter of the two circular parking/stopping plates.
Do not reverse the captions. Do not treat sign 36 as a night-only rule. Do not treat sign 37 as applying only to goods vehicles. Do not confuse either plate with sign 35 (alternate dates, section 14.2), with no entry, or with a blue information P panel that marks a place where parking is provided. A red-bordered prohibition tells you what you must not do on the road in front of you. A car park is announced separately; rule 89 tells you to use that car park or a suitable side street instead of the main road when you can.
Chapter 13 studies the wider prohibitory family (no entry, no turns, horn ban, speed limit). This section applies plates 36 and 37 as parking and stopping law for the learner sitting.
Rule 89: main road is the last choice
Rule 89 is one sentence: Do not park in a main road if you can use a car park or a suitable side street.
Georgetown’s main roads, the East Bank corridor, East Coast public roads, New Amsterdam through-routes, and named crossings such as the approaches to the Demerara Harbour Bridge and the Canje Bridge are for moving traffic. An empty-looking kerb on those routes is still a main-road kerb. If a marked car park, a yard, or a quieter side street will take the vehicle, rule 89 says use it. The rule is not cancelled because you are “only going into the bank for a minute.” That minute is parking if you leave the vehicle standing on the main road when a car park or side street was available.
Rule 90: where you must not let the vehicle stand
Rule 90 opens: Do not let your vehicle stand in the road-way — then lists the conditions. Read (a) as the only lawful way to stand on the carriageway at all, and (b) to (e) as places where standing is forbidden even if you are close to the edge.
(a) You may not let the vehicle stand in the roadway unless it is drawn in close to the edge of the road. The Code’s kerb instruction for parking and stopping is close to the edge, not a car’s width out in a live lane so that following traffic must swerve. Section 14.3 returns to that edge when you leave the vehicle on a slope.
(b) Do not stand within 30 feet of a junction, except to load or unload or to comply with traffic requirements. Thirty feet is the printed figure. Fifteen feet is a different clearance in (d) (hydrant). Do not swap them. The junction exception is load or unload or traffic requirements (a signal, a constable, a queue that has already stopped you). It is not “I am turning soon” and it is not “the side road looks empty.” A vehicle standing in that 30-foot pocket blocks the look right, left, right again that Chapter 6 teaches for emerging drivers.
(c) Do not stand so as to create a traffic hazard and consequent danger to other users of the road. The Code’s own examples: near bus stops, school entrances, or so as to obscure traffic signs, traffic lights or pedestrian crossings. A hire car that hides a STOP octagon, a minibus that sits on the approach to broad black-and-white crossing stripes, or a car that blocks a school gate at the hour children pour out, is the hazard (c) names. Standing on a bridge deck or in a narrowing (the same family of places rule 34 treats as overtaking danger) is the same idea: you have occupied the only sight line other people have.
(d) Do not stand within 15 feet of a fire hydrant. The Fire Brigade must be able to reach the hydrant without shuffling parked vehicles. Fifteen feet is not 30 feet and is not 15 yards (the night-parking lamp distance in section 14.3).
The printed list then repeats a letter in the April 2025 PDF and adds: Alongside another parked car. That is double parking: a second vehicle standing beside one already at the edge, occupying the running lane. It is forbidden even if both drivers claim they will “only be a minute,” and even if the street is a Georgetown one-way with “plenty of room.” You have converted one parked line into a blockage.
Rule 90 does not give you a free standing place merely because no circular plate is in sight. The distances and the hazard test apply on unmarked lengths as well.
Continuous yellow: no stopping, with three printed exceptions
Regulation 178(4)(e) (Theoretical Programme reprint): overtaking of a moving vehicle or the stopping along a road shall be prohibited by a continuous yellow line, as viewed in the direction of travel of the vehicle, being placed left of the centre line. Chapter 11 teaches the overtaking half. This chapter teaches the stopping half, because that is parking-and-stopping law.
Regulation 178(8) restates the ban: no vehicle shall stop on a length of road along which that continuous yellow line is placed. Then it allows a stop if it is necessary:
- Approved road work — to enable the vehicle to be used in carrying out an approved road work if it cannot be used without stopping on that length of road. Convenience parking for a contractor’s pickup is not enough. If the work can be done from a side street, a closed lane that is not that yellow length, or a site off the carriageway, (a) does not apply.
- Boarding or alighting — to enable a person to board or alight from the vehicle.
- Fire brigade, ambulance or police — if the vehicle is being used for those purposes.
The regulation then cuts (a) and (b) down: it shall not be considered necessary to stop for road works or for boarding/alighting if it is practicable to stop in a lay-by or on a road parapet or verge. That is the learner trap. A passenger who can step onto a usable lay-by, parapet, or verge does not create a yellow-line boarding right. Hazard lights do not add a fourth exception. “I live in this lot” does not add a fifth. Minibuses on a school run are not named in (c).
Fire, ambulance, and police in (c) match the Code’s siren rule elsewhere: those units are the named emergency users. An ordinary learner car is not.
Traffic boxes, yellow-bordered islands, and Police parking orders
The Code’s markings pages add a Traffic Box: no vehicle should stop thereon, so that traffic on the intersecting roadway can still flow when the other arm is held up. That is a junction-clearance rule with the same practical result as “do not stop in the painted box.” Yellow-bordered areas (regulation 178(7)) are not parking bays; you must not cross or straddle them. A street refuge is not a place to leave a car.
Cap. 51:02 gives the Commissioner of Police power by order to appoint parking places, to prescribe the manner and conditions of parking there, and to prohibit or restrict parking on a road or part of a road, generally or on particular occasions or during particular hours. Georgetown and New Amsterdam kerb rules can therefore be tighter than the Code’s default list. An order, a plate, and a yellow line can stack. Obey all of them.
Prohibited standing — comparison table
| Control | What it forbids | What it still allows |
|---|---|---|
| Sign 36 NO parking | Leaving the vehicle parked on that stretch | Not a licence to ignore a yellow line, a box, or rule 90 |
| Sign 37 Stopping prohibited | Even a brief halt | Nothing short of being required to stop by a signal, a constable, or immediate danger |
| Continuous yellow left of centre (178(4)(e) / (8)) | Stopping (and overtaking a moving vehicle) | Approved road work if otherwise impossible; board/alight if a lay-by / parapet / verge is not practicable; fire / ambulance / police |
| Rule 89 | Main-road parking when a car park or side street exists | Using that car park or side street |
| Rule 90(a) | Standing out in the roadway | Standing drawn in close to the edge |
| Rule 90(b) | Standing within 30 feet of a junction | Load or unload, or comply with traffic requirements |
| Rule 90(c) | Standing as a hazard (bus stops, school entrances, hiding signs/lights/crossings) | None of those examples |
| Rule 90(d) | Standing within 15 feet of a fire hydrant | Staying outside that clearance |
| Alongside another parked car | Double parking in the running lane | A single line close to the edge, if otherwise lawful |
| Traffic box | Stopping on the box | Keeping the intersecting flow clear |
Independent OpenExamPrep teaching of where not to park or stop follows the printed Code rules 89 and 90, plates 36 and 37, and regulation 178(8). It does not add a shopping-time grace, and it does not treat a yellow-bordered refuge as a bay.
On a Georgetown street the Code shows two nearby circular plates. Sign 36 is captioned NO parking and sign 37 is captioned Stopping prohibited. What is the practical difference for a learner?
A continuous yellow line sits left of the centre as you travel. A passenger wants to get out. There is a usable lay-by immediately beside that yellow length. What does regulation 178(8) say about stopping on the yellow line to let the passenger alight?
Rule 90(b) says you must not let your vehicle stand in the roadway within a set distance of a junction, except to load or unload or to comply with traffic requirements. That distance is: