Parking

"Are there specific rules of the road for parking lots?" asks a reader. "If so please clarify them." Parking lots often seem to be a free for all to me. This observation might be confirmed by the fact that ICBC reports that in 2018 there were about 96,000 crashes in parking lots that resulted in a claim being filed. 4,300 of those claims included someone being injured, 480 of those people were pedestrians.

In the MVA under section 189 it states that: (1) Except when necessary to avoid conflict with traffic or to comply with the law or the directions of a peace officer or traffic control device, a person must not stop, stand or park a vehicle as follows: (k) alongside or opposite a street excavation or obstruction when stopping, standing or parking obstructs traffic;

Is it legal to pull into a head-in angled parking spot on the opposite side of the street (crossing a solid yellow line)?

Question: I will be visiting your beautiful country and intend to do a lot of driving. We have an Australian handicap parking permit for my son with autism. I wonder if I can bring it and use it in Canada?

I've started to take my own advice and back into parking stalls more often. There have been some unique experiences, mostly pedestrians that blithely march past the back of my vehicle ignoring the signal and backup lights, but there are drivers who want to go first and think second. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to include myself in that category this time around.

I was just wondering about parking rules, as my family and any visitors to my home have been hassled by city parking enforcement about parking too close to an intersection. A family member and a caretaker of my grandmother would have been ticketed so far if they had not run out to speak to the officers.

I had a bit of a scare the other day when I tried to back out of a space in a busy parking lot. There was a large van beside me blocking my view so I scanned as completely as I could and began to let up on the clutch. No sooner had I started to roll than a woman paying more attention to her smart phone than where she was walking appeared from behind the van. We both slammed on the brakes and after looking at each other for a moment, she continued on her way.

Question: My husband was parked on the street and was 8 metres and a bit away from the stop sign, just to the right of the gravel patch shown below. A tow truck was about to tow the car when my husband went to rectify the situation.