13.3 Mandatory, Priority, Parking and Stopping Signs

Mandatory, priority, parking, and stopping signs

Sections 13.1 and 13.2 taught the entry, turn, overtaking, speed, and horn discs. This section finishes the Code's numbered international list with the mandatory direction plate, the opposite-direction priority plate, the parking and stopping discs, and the Overtake with Caution information plate. This independent OpenExamPrep study of signs 19, 34 to 37, and 40, of rules 89 to 91, and of the British P, NO WAITING, and ONE WAY STREET plates is not a GPF booklet and does not claim official approval, review, or partnership.

Quick Answer: Sign 19, Direction to be followed, means take the indicated direction. Sign 34 means priority to vehicles coming in the opposite direction — you wait. Sign 35 means NO parking on the left on uneven dates or on the right on even dates. Sign 36 is NO parking. Sign 37 is Stopping prohibited. Sign 40, Overtake with Caution, allows overtaking only with care and does not grant right of way. Do not invent an end-of-restriction disc the Code list does not print.

Sign 19: direction to be followed, and one-way streets

Sign 19, Direction to be followed, is the mandatory plate in the numbered list. You must proceed in the direction the plate indicates. It is not an upright warning triangle, not Give Way, and not STOP. If the indicated direction is ahead only, you do not turn. If it is a required left or right, you take that turn when the layout and any other plate allow it — and you still do not take a movement sign 29 or sign 39 has banned.

The conventional British page prints ONE WAY STREET with an arrow. That is the worded cousin: travel only in the arrow's direction. In left-hand traffic you still keep left on a one-way street except when rule 46 puts you on the right side of that street to turn right. The other end of a one-way is the No entry disc from section 13.1. Entering against the arrow is the same family of error as passing the white-bar disc. Rule 39 (hold-ups: keep in your own lane) still applies in a one-way queue in Georgetown.

Sign 34: priority to the opposite direction

Sign 34, Priority to be given to vehicles coming in the opposite direction. The illustration is a circular plate with opposing arrows; the oncoming stream is the one that keeps priority. You wait. Typical Guyana places: a narrow bridge, a narrow culvert, a one-line squeeze, a temporary contraflow that still runs two ways. Chapter 6 already named this plate with Road narrows (sign 21) and Opening bridge (sign 25). This section is the regulatory reading: the plate is a priority command, not a warning triangle.

Do not confuse it with sign 4, Priority road ahead (you are on the through route; others may face Give Way or STOP). Do not confuse it with sign 24, Two-way traffic (an upright warning that opposing flow is ahead). Do not confuse it with the inverted Give Way triangle. Do not treat it as permission to overtake through the pinch (rule 34 already forbids overtaking at a bridge or narrow culvert and where the road narrows).

Rule 22 still says keep well left when meeting. On a squeeze that will take only one vehicle, keeping left is not enough if you are the stream that must wait. Sign 34 tells you which stream that is: yours. The oncoming hire car, lorry, or minibus has priority. Pull left, stop if you need to, and do not occupy the whole width because you arrived first. Rule 27 still requires care and the prescribed or posted limit on the Demerara Harbour Bridge and the Canje Bridge. An opening-bridge warning plus a narrow deck is exactly where sign 34 earns its keep. Sounding the horn does not buy the deck (rule 76).

Sign 35: alternate-date parking

Sign 35, NO parking on left on uneven dates or right on even dates. Read the caption in two halves.

• Uneven dates — 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 29, 31 — NO parking on the left.
• Even dates — 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30 — NO parking on the right.

In left-hand traffic, left is the near side and right is the off side. The plate is alternate-side parking so one flank of a town street stays clear on a given calendar day. The date is the calendar date, not the day you arrived in Georgetown, not the day on a visitor's entry stamp, and not "the last time the sweeper came." Chapter 14 will teach more parking locations. Here you only need the plate.

Sign 35 is not a speed-limit numeral. The Code drawing of sign 32 shows a 30 in a red circle; that 30 is a speed. Sign 35's numbers are dates. Mixing those two plates is a sitting error. Sign 35 is also not sign 36 (a standing no-parking disc with no date switch) and not sign 37 (stopping prohibited).

Sign 36 and sign 37: NO parking versus stopping prohibited

Sign 36, NO parking. The illustration is the blue disc with a red ring and a single red diagonal. Do not park — do not leave the vehicle standing — on that length or in that bay. Sign 37, Stopping prohibited. The illustration is the blue disc with a red ring and a red cross (two diagonals). That is the stricter halt: you must not stop, not merely not park.

Teach the Code's two names. Do not write a foreign loading-exception essay the booklet does not print. A traffic halt behind a stopped bus, a halt a Police rank requires, or a halt to avoid an accident is not "I stopped to buy a phone card under a stopping-prohibited disc." Sign 37 is not an invitation to stop on the Demerara Harbour Bridge to watch river traffic. Sign 36 is not a grant of a five-minute wait because the engine is running. Chapter 14 will go further on where parking and stopping are prohibited. This section is the plates.

Rules 89 to 91 still apply whether or not a disc is in view. Rule 89: do not park in a main road if you can use a car park or a suitable side street. Rule 90: do not let the vehicle stand in the roadway unless it is drawn in close to the edge; do not stand within 30 feet of a junction except to load or unload or to comply with traffic requirements; do not stand so as to create a traffic hazard — near bus stops, school entrances, or so as to obscure traffic signs, traffic lights or pedestrian crossings; do not stand within 15 feet of a fire hydrant; do not stand alongside another parked car. Rule 91: stop the engine and engage the handbrake before you leave the vehicle; on a slope it is advisable to engage a gear, but remember to disengage it before starting the engine.

The British page adds NO WAITING (yellow discs, including one that also reads TURN SLOW) and a square P. P is parking information — a place where parking is provided — not a cancel of sign 36 on the next street. NO WAITING is the conventional waiting/parking restriction in that British set. A yellow NO WAITING is not a speed limit and not a U-turn ban.

Sign 40: overtake with caution

Sign 40, Overtake with Caution. This is the information/caution plate that closes the numbered list. The illustration shows two vehicles in the overtaking picture without the prohibitory meaning of sign 30. You may overtake, but only with care. It is not a grant of right of way. It is not permission to overtake at a rule 34 place (corner, junction, pedestrian crossing, bridge or narrow culvert, hill crest, narrowing). It is not permission to cross a continuous yellow no-overtaking line. It is not permission to cut in (rule 37). It is not sign 31 inverted. It is not sign 39 (NO U-turn), even though the typeset caption for 39 sits on the same line as the words Overtake with Caution.

Rule 33 still governs: never overtake unless you can see that there is no danger; be specially careful after dark and in rain. Rule 76 still governs: the horn does not buy the pass. After you pass, do not pull in sharply. If you are ready to be overtaken, give the appropriate signal and do not increase speed (rule 35).

The Code list still does not print an end-of-parking, end-of-stopping, or end-of-priority disc. Do not invent those ISO extras. Obey the plate you can see, read any notice used in conjunction (regulation 175(3)), and keep the Highway Code place-rules.

Named plates for this section

Master the last sitting contrasts: 36 parks, 37 stops, 40 cautions an overtake. Sign 34 gives the other stream the pinch. Sign 35 follows the calendar. Sign 19 and the one-way arrow tell you which way the road itself runs. None of those plates transfers right of way to a driver who arrived first, honked, or claimed a foreign ISO extra the Guyana booklet does not print.