2020 Georgia Code
Title 40 - Motor Vehicles and Traffic
Chapter 6 - Uniform Rules of the Road
Article 10 - Stopping, Standing, and Parking
Part 1 - General Provisions
§ 40-6-203. Stopping, Standing, or Parking Prohibited in Specified Places; Stopping or Standing for Collecting Municipal Solid Waste or Recovered Materials

1. Except when necessary to avoid conflict with other traffic, or in compliance with law or the directions of a police officer or official traffic-control device, no person shall:
   1. Stop, stand, or park a vehicle:
      1. On the roadway side of any vehicle stopped or parked at the edge of a curb of a street;
      2. On a sidewalk;
      3. Within an intersection;
      4. On a crosswalk;
      5. Between a safety zone and the adjacent curb or within 30 feet of points on the curb immediately opposite the ends of a safety zone, unless a different length is indicated by signs or markings;
      6. Alongside or opposite any street excavation or obstruction when stopping, standing, or parking would obstruct traffic;
      7. Upon any bridge or other elevated structure upon a highway or within a highway tunnel;
      8. On any railroad tracks;
      9. On any controlled-access highway;
      10. In the area between roadways of a divided highway, including crossovers; or
      11. At any place where official signs prohibit stopping;
   2. Stand or park a vehicle, whether occupied or not, except momentarily to pick up or discharge a passenger or passengers:
      1. In front of a public or private driveway;
      2. Within 15 feet of a fire hydrant;
      3. Within 20 feet of a crosswalk at an intersection;
      4. Within 30 feet upon the approach to any flashing signal, stop sign, yield sign, or traffic-control signal located at the side of a roadway;
      5. Within 20 feet of the driveway entrance to any fire station or on the side of a street opposite the entrance to any fire station within 75 feet of such entrance (when properly posted); or
      6. At any place where official signs prohibit standing; or
   3. Park a vehicle, whether occupied or not, except temporarily for the purpose of and while actually engaged in loading or unloading property or passengers:
      1. Within 50 feet of the nearest rail of a railroad crossing; or
      2. At any place where official signs prohibit parking.
2. No person shall move a vehicle not lawfully under his control into any prohibited area or to such a distance away from the curb as is unlawful.
3. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any vehicle used solely for the purpose of collecting municipal solid waste or recovered materials as defined in Code Section 12-8-22 may stop or stand on the road, street, or highway for the sole purpose of collecting such waste or materials; provided, however, that such vehicle shall maintain flashing hazard lights at all times that it is engaged in stopping or standing for the purpose of waste or materials collection.

(Ga. L. 1953, Nov.-Dec. Sess., p. 556, § 92; Code 1933, § 68A-1003, enacted by Ga. L. 1974, p. 633, § 1; Ga. L. 1989, p. 14, § 40; Ga. L. 1990, p. 2048, § 5; Ga. L. 1994, p. 639, § 1.)

- Right of person to have removed any car parked without authorization upon property possessed by such person, § 44-1-13.

- For annual survey of trial practice and procedure, see 56 Mercer L. Rev. 433 (2004).

JUDICIAL DECISIONS

"Stop, stand, or park" a vehicle.

- Trial court properly charged the jury that "no person shall stop, stand, or park a vehicle on any controlled-access highway," since the evidence presented an inference from which the jury could have found that the driver was in the process of stopping or had come to a rolling stop at the time of the collision. Morris v. DeLong, 183 Ga. App. 124, 358 S.E.2d 285 (1987).

O.C.G.A. § 40-6-203 prohibits any halting, even if momentary, of a vehicle on a controlled-access highway except when necessary to keep from striking other traffic or to comply with the directions of a police officer or traffic-control signal or sign. The statute is definite and certain in the statute's meaning, and men of common intelligence would not differ as to the application of the statute's provisions. Conyers v. State, 260 Ga. 506, 397 S.E.2d 423 (1990).

- In a negligence action, where a driver arrived at the scene of an existing accident, parked in the emergency lane, turned on the driver's emergency blinkers, and exited the driver's vehicle, and a second vehicle hit the parked vehicle and then went off into a ravine, killing the driver, the trial court's denial of summary judgment in favor of the first driver was proper; parking in the emergency lane of a limited access highway was negligence per se. Storer Communications, Inc. v. Burns, 195 Ga. App. 230, 393 S.E.2d 92 (1990).

- Before violation constitutes actionable negligence, it must be for the protection of a class of persons of which the plaintiff is a member. Kibbey Chevrolet, Inc. v. Anderson, 111 Ga. App. 90, 140 S.E.2d 564 (1965).

- Statutory prohibitions against parking on a crosswalk were intended to guard against the hazard to users of the streets caused by pedestrians having to enter and cross at places where there are obstructions in the street. Archer Plumbing & Heating Co. v. Dodys, 112 Ga. App. 355, 145 S.E.2d 277 (1965).

- Because the purpose of Ga. L. 1953, Nov.-Dec. Sess., p. 556 prohibiting parking in an intersection or within 20 feet of a crosswalk at an intersection is to prevent intersection collisions and hazards of obstructions to sight between pedestrians and motorists by parked vehicles, the violation of those provisions would in no way be negligence as to one striking the rear of a parked carrier. Kibbey Chevrolet, Inc. v. Anderson, 111 Ga. App. 90, 140 S.E.2d 564 (1965).

- Parking of a vehicle so that a substantial portion thereof was within 12 feet of the center line of the highway was a violation of Ga. L. 1953, Nov.-Dec. Sess., p. 556, and was negligence per se. Washington v. Kemp, 99 Ga. App. 635, 109 S.E.2d 294 (1959).

- Compliance with Georgia's Uniform Rules of the Road, O.C.G.A. § 40-6-1 et seq., did not necessarily demonstrate that a defendant exercised ordinary care; in a case seeking damages for injuries arising from an accident in which an auto struck a parked garbage truck, a trial court did not err in admitting evidence regarding a safer location for the stop of the truck or in refusing to instruct the jury that if the truck's flashing hazard lights were on at the time of the collision, then, pursuant to O.C.G.A. § 40-6-203(c), the driver and the employer could not have been found negligent. Sinclair Disposal Serv. v. Ochoa, 265 Ga. App. 172, 593 S.E.2d 358 (2004).

- Trial court erred by granting summary judgment to the defendants in a wrongful death action upon concluding that the plaintiffs' decedent was 50 percent or more responsible for the decedent's own death because there was an issue of fact as to whether the decedent would have died but for the presence of the tractor-trailer illegally parked in the emergency lane. Reed v. Carolina Cas. Ins. Co., 327 Ga. App. 130, 755 S.E.2d 356 (2014).

- Oncoming driver's conduct in failing to keep proper lookout, simply because it constituted the violation of a public law, was not of such nature as to relieve the defendants of the consequence of their unlawful act in leaving the truck parked upon and within 12 feet of the center of the highway; in order for the driver's negligence to insulate the defendants from liability it must have been such as the defendants could not have reasonably anticipated at the time the defendants created the perilous situation by leaving the truck standing on the highway. Pittman v. Staples, 95 Ga. App. 187, 97 S.E.2d 630 (1957).

- School bus drivers are accorded the right to stop their buses on the pavement and within less than 12 feet of the center line of the highway for the purpose of receiving or discharging school children. Stroud v. Doolittle, 213 Ga. 32, 96 S.E.2d 876 (1957).

- Because a situation in which a truck driver witnessed an accident on a highway in which two vehicles veered off the road into a ravine presented an emergency, the truck driver's act of stopping in an emergency lane to run into the ravine to provide assistance was in compliance with O.C.G.A. § 40-6-50(b), and not in violation of O.C.G.A. § 40-6-203. Reid v. Midwest Transp., 270 Ga. App. 557, 607 S.E.2d 170 (2004).

- Because the government did not allege that the defendant stopped the defendant's vehicle under any of the particular circumstances listed in O.C.G.A. § 40-6-203, there was no traffic basis on which the officer could have had probable cause to stop the defendant's vehicle. United States v. Lopez-Garcia, 565 F.3d 1306 (11th Cir. 2009), cert. denied, 558 U.S. 1092, 130 S. Ct. 1012, 175 L. Ed. 2d 620 (2009).

Cited in Wallace v. Ener, 521 F.2d 215 (5th Cir. 1975); Fabian v. Vincent, 155 Ga. App. 464, 270 S.E.2d 858 (1980); Blake v. Continental S.E. Lines, 161 Ga. App. 869, 289 S.E.2d 551 (1982); Garrett v. Brannen, 164 Ga. App. 10, 296 S.E.2d 205 (1982); Robinson v. Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Auth., 197 Ga. App. 628, 399 S.E.2d 252 (1990); Roberts v. State, 242 Ga. App. 120, 527 S.E.2d 617 (2000); Dial v. Natalizi, 246 Ga. App. 97, 539 S.E.2d 617 (2000); Gantt v. State, 263 Ga. App. 102, 587 S.E.2d 255 (2003); Ingram v. State, 286 Ga. App. 436, 649 S.E.2d 576 (2007).

RESEARCH REFERENCES

Am. Jur. 2d.

- 7A Am. Jur. 2d, Automobiles and Highway Traffic, §§ 305, 317 et seq.

- 60A C.J.S., Motor Vehicles, §§ 751 et seq., 762 et seq.

- Driving automobile across track in front of street car that has stopped to take on or let off passengers as negligence or contributory negligence, 14 A.L.R. 811.

Right to admission to parking ground or to service at gas station or garages, 35 A.L.R. 557.

Parking at improper place as affecting liability for automobile accident, 73 A.L.R. 1074.

Validity of automobile parking ordinances or regulations, 108 A.L.R. 1152; 130 A.L.R. 316.

Stopping vehicle on traveled portion of highway as affecting responsibility for collision between vehicles, 131 A.L.R. 562.

Construction and effect in civil actions of statute, ordinance, or regulation requiring vehicles to be stopped or parked parallel with, and within certain distance of, curb, 17 A.L.R.2d 582.

Criminal responsibility of motor vehicle operator for accident arising from physical defect, illness, drowsiness, or falling asleep, 63 A.L.R.2d 983.

Applicability of res ipsa loquitur doctrine where motor vehicle stops on highway, 79 A.L.R.2d 153.

Civil liability of mobile vendor for attracting into street child injured by another's motor vehicle, 84 A.L.R.3d 826.