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  1. #9
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
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    California
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    Default Re: Parking in Turnouts on Two Lane Roads

    Quote Quoting Harold99
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    I have never heard that before. Passing signs are used all down the highway. I never seen a sign indicating a turn-out is to allow for passing. Have you? Is what you are saying in the CVC? And, if there are signs that say "slower traffic use turnouts," (likely on a steep incline) does the absence of that sign mean all turnouts are for passing as well?
    Turnouts are mentioned in only one section of the CVC:

    21656.
    On a two-lane highway where passing is unsafe because of traffic in the opposite direction or other conditions, any vehicle proceeding upon the highway at a speed less than the normal speed of traffic moving in the same direction at that time, behind which five or more vehicles are formed in line, shall turn off the roadway at the nearest place designated as a turnout by signs erected by the authority having jurisdiction over the highway, or wherever sufficient area for a safe turnout exists, in order to permit the vehicles following it to proceed.


    You see these a lot on mountain and country roads out here (like where I live).

    Legal stopping and parking areas, which can be turnouts, are also part of the highway. Since turnouts do not have lanes or marked parking stalls, and a car in a turnout is out of lanes of through traffic, how can he be obstructing traffic? It would be like stopping in an open field and being charged with blocking traffic.
    If it is not a marked "turnout" then it is a shoulder or simply off the roadway. Depending upon the position of the vehicle, stopping or parking off to the side MAY violate one or more sections of the CVC depending upon the facts and the details.

    To be specific and not "general," please tell what the purpose and prohibitions are of the turnouts on Hwy 14 between Santa Clarita and Lancaster, CA? I have driven that Hwy my whole life and witnessed motorists use those turnouts for whatever they wish...park and hike, stretch their legs, eat lunch, urinate, etc, and I have never seen a CHP ever interact with them. Heck, I even see big rig truckers sleeping in trun-outs all the way up the 395 to Mammoth and Tahoe.
    Don't know. Are they marked turnouts? Are people stopped in such a way as to obstruct vehicles intending to use them for their intended purpose of letting traffic pass? If those vehicles are parked and obstructing traffic on the highway utilizing the turnout, then such parking or stopping and standing may be unlawful.

    You seem to be saying that there is no difference between stopping or parking in the emergency lane and stopping or parking in a turnout, when in my experience, there is.
    Not saying that at all. It comes down to whether the vehicle is obstructing traffic in one way or another. And, keep in mind that the obstruction does not mean that it's hanging over the road. VC 22651(b) is open to some level of interpretation as to what constitutes a hazard.

    22651(b)
    If a vehicle is parked or left standing upon a highway in a position so as to obstruct the normal movement of traffic or in a condition so as to create a hazard to other traffic upon the highway.


    It can be obstructing traffic by jutting into the roadway, or providing a visibility obstruction to oncoming traffic around a mountain turn, or some other hazard that does not leap to my mind at the moment.

    A "turnout" is not specifically defined under the CVC and is only mentioned at all in 21656 cited above. Whether any action can be taken against a vehicle or operator of a vehicle stopped or parked in such a locale depends on other facts and not just their presence in such a lane.

    EDIT: And, yes, the "turnout" IS part of the "highway" as defined under the CVC.

    360
    “Highway” is a way or place of whatever nature, publicly maintained and open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel. Highway includes street.

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