Safe Speed Forums

A couple of hours ago I parked my car facing the wrong way on the other side of the road, and an old git who drove past mouthed off at me saying that I wasn't allowed to park the wrong way round. I was parked between two cars, and the one in front was facing the wrong way too.

If he read the Highway Code he would know that it is perfectly legal to park the wrong way on a 30mph road in the daytime, so all his fuss was about nothing, and he was cursing me for competent and legal actions.

I don't think it is good practise, it's difficult to see when you are pulling out again.

Seems like an ideal candidate for a village vigilante camera operator

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Speed camera policy Kills

especially at night when you are nicely blinded by lights of the lazy gits who insist on doing this. Is it really that hard to turn around?

More like illegal at night---

Parking at night
222: You MUST NOT park on a road at night facing against the direction of the traffic flow unless in a recognised parking space.
Laws CUR reg 101 & RVLR reg 24

And as said -at night some of the wrong way parkers forget about lights -
as in HC 214 --

you MUST switch off the engine, headlights and fog lights .

so how do they define a *recognised* parking space (ignoring for the minute why they are encouraging people to do this anyway)?

Presumably they're the ones with the white dotted borders that are starting to become more frequent on residential streets and in town centres.


I park facing the wrong way in Aylesbury all the time. There are a very limited number of free spaces, so I just orbit a road that contains 12 of them and a roundabout at either end, as soon as someone vacates a space I don't care that I'm on the other side of the road as it will be gone by the time I have looped around.

(I refuse to pay 75p for the privelige of being able to go into town and buy a 30p sausage roll, not least because the traffic wardens will have got to me before I've gotten to the cash machine and then gotten change)


I've had one person tell me I can't park facing that way, but I think that was because I got to the space before them. I suspect this may be what happened to the OP too.

I suppose the parking at night thing is so that people can see your reflectors, or if it's a road that requires parking lights, so that you don't dazzle oncoming traffic. In theory that means that LHD cars MUST park the wrong way around when using parking lights.

Why, are the rear lights on the front on LHD?

I was thinking more about dazzling oncoming traffic, since the lights will be higher on the right hand side rather than the left.

I thought parking lights were the ones operated by the indicator switch when the ignition is off

Knowing our local councils - "one you have to pay for "???? (unless you're in an exempt type vehicle)

Depends on the car. My golf did, but my Rover (1 year older than the Golf) doesn't.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.

Oscar wrote:
"I thought parking lights were the ones operated by the indicator switch when the ignition is off "


As far as i can remember - this was something i have only seen on cars made by or derived from German ones and usually on the cheaper end of the market .Seem to remember an old mate (VW beetle enthuasist) telling me that the law (possibly not now ,but at one time )in germany required the lights nearest the road( i.e not pavement side) to be lit when the car was parked.

No, parking lights is the first position of the lights switch - although many, many drivers insist on driving with only these lights on

And a lot of these with foglights too...

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Earth rotation is caused by penguins running around the south pole.

No, they're called sidelights!

But they should only be used for parking!!!!

Have you got a source for this claim, or is it your own opinion?

tell that to the Swedes.

I agree - sidelights are NOT adequate for use as running lights.

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Science won over religion when they started installing lightning rods on churches.