When you can park on double yellows

Motorists can park on double yellow lines - when dropping off children at school.

And they have three minutes' grace if they stay too long at a meter.

The loopholes emerged as Westminster bowed to public criticism of its "over-zealous" parking regime and revealed secret guidance issued to traffic wardens.

The 30-page Enforcement Protocol document reveals:

  • Illegally parked cars should be moved on but not ticketed if the driver is present and vehicles with diplomatic plates should be ticketed but not clamped.
  • Drivers dropping off passengers and luggage at a yellow line must be given "sufficient time for as long as necessary".
  • Illegally parked ambulances must be observed for an hour before being ticketed and must never be clamped or towed.
  • Drivers must not be fined for showing pay-and-display tickets upside down - as long as they can be read. But they can be fined if the ticket is displayed in the car face-down.

The document informs Westminster's 300 attendants that certain vehicles are exempt from ?100 tickets even if they're parked on yellow lines, for health and safety reasons.

They include scaffolding and glaziers' vehicles so that workers can park next to the site to prevent dangerous objects being carried on the pavement.

Westminster said it published the guidelines to underline its new commitment to "fair" parking, revealed by the Standard last week.

Colin Barrow, Westminster's cabinet member for transport, said he hoped the guidelines would be "useful" for motorists.

"In the past we have not published this document because we were concerned it could be misinterpreted and cause problems on the street," he said.

"But we now feel that the most important thing is for motorists to know where they stand when they are parking and also to see the kind of efforts we make to ensure enforcement in Westminster is firm but fair."

The papers confirm that parents can park on double yellow lines for 10 minutes if they are picking up or dropping off children "in the immediate vicinity" of school.

This doesn't include residents' bays, meters, "zigzag" lines outside schools, or where extra kerb markings indicate no loading.

The three- minute "allowance", as it is termed, is to compensate for differences between parking attendants' and motorists' watches.

Publication of the guidelines was welcomed by the RAC Foundation. Executive director Edmund King said: "This should help the relationship between motorists and parking attendants. But surely there could have been five minutes' allowance. If both the driver's and attendant's watches are out, it doesn't leave much room for error."

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