Angled Parking Isn’t for Everyone

Q: There are several areas in town with angled parking. Some trucks parking in those spaces are longer than the parking slot, and they stick out into the traffic lane. It becomes a game of chicken to drive by there. Do I squeeze by, do I change lanes? Are there any rules or guidelines for parking with oversized vehicles in this situation?

A: It’s easier to find the rules for drivers than it is for the parkers, so let’s start there. You asked if you should squeeze by or change lanes; well, it depends. The law requires drivers to drive on the right half of the roadway (with some exceptions). If you can stay in your lane and safely fit past the long truck or van, that’s what you should do. But you probably wouldn’t be asking about this if you could.

One of the exceptions to the law permits drivers to cross the center of the roadway “when an obstruction exists making it necessary.” If the tail of an angle-parked vehicle blocks part of your lane, you can move into the oncoming lane to get around it. However, you do need to yield to oncoming traffic.

The rules for angle parkers are less clear, at least inside city limits. State law prohibits parking on the roadway outside of incorporated cities and towns. (Roadway, as defined in the law, is the part of the highway intended for driving on and does not include the shoulder.)

But the angled parking you’re asking about is in town. It seems like it would be obvious, but I can’t find a law in the Revised Code of Washington that clearly forbids parking in such a way as to block part of a traffic lane. There are plenty of places you’re not allowed to park: on sidewalks, in an intersection, on a crosswalk, on a bridge, on train tracks, and so on; no surprises there. But the RCW is oddly silent on parking that blocks a traffic lane.

However, that doesn’t mean it’s legal. It just means we’re looking in the wrong place. In addition to state laws, cities and counties have municipal and county codes. Washington has something called the Model Traffic Ordinance (MTO). It’s a set of traffic rules that cities and counties can adopt into their local codes, and most cities do.

The MTO has a rule that prohibits parking a vehicle in such a manner as to leave less than ten feet of the roadway free for traffic. That might sound reasonable, but there’s a problem depending on how you interpret it. A single lane for vehicle travel is typically between nine and twelve feet wide, so a normal two-lane roadway is roughly 20 feet wide. Does that mean blocking the lane with your terrible parking job is legal, as long as there’s ten feet available in the other lane?

Many jurisdictions that adopt the MTO solve this problem by writing their own parking rules, and some cities don’t use the MTO at all, choosing to write their own traffic code. Depending on where you park, local rules could prohibit angle parking in a position that obstructs traffic, if the vehicle sticks out past the paint marking the parking spot, if the vehicle is longer than 20 feet, or some other similar rule.

Wherever you park though, it’s reasonably likely that a vehicle sticking out past the parking space and into the roadway is illegally parked. If you drive a longer-than-normal vehicle, there are some places you can’t park. With your choice of vehicle comes an obligation to drive, and park, responsibly.