IT NEEDS THE T-BAR. I JUST WON A CASE AGAINST THE POLICE ON THESE GROUNDS.
It went to Magistrates Court and they threw it out after I produced the following letter, with a copy of TSRGD diagram 1018.1and a photo of my car parked on the yellow lines without a T-Bar. Reproduce at will to help :-) Good Luck.
<letter starts>
The Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984:
Section 64. General provisions as to traffic signs.
(1)In this Act “traffic sign” means any object or device (whether fixed or portable) for conveying, to traffic on roads or any specified class of traffic, warnings, information, requirements, restrictions or prohibitions of any description—
(a)specified by regulations made by the Ministers acting jointly, or
(b)authorised by the Secretary of State,
and any line or mark on a road for so conveying such warnings, information, requirements, restrictions or prohibitions.
(2)Traffic signs shall be of the size, colour and type prescribed by regulations made as mentioned in subsection (1)(a) above except where the Secretary of State authorises the erection or retention of a sign of another character; and for the purposes of this subsection illumination, whether by lighting or by the use of reflectors or reflecting material, or the absence of such illumination, shall be part of the type or character of a sign.
Regulation 11(1) of the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions (TSRGD) (2002) states that:
11—(1) Subject to the provisions of these Regulations, a sign for conveying information or a warning, requirement, restriction, prohibition or speed limit of the description specified under a diagram in Schedules 1 to 7, Part II of Schedule 10 and Schedule 12 to traffic on roads shall be of the size, colour and type shown in the diagram.
Schedule 6 of the TSRGD contains the pertinent diagram concerning double yellow lines (or 'signs'), namely diagram 1018.1, reproduced in whole here:
The road signs numbered 1018.1 are a continuous line terminating with a transverse mark. Particular attention is drawn to item 4 : - Permitted Variants: None.
Chapter 5 of the Traffic Signs Manual produced by the Department for Transport (DfT) provides guidance on the use of roadmarkings. It confirms the TSRGD (2002) and referring to yellow lines (paragraph 20.3, p116), it states:
“A transverse mark must be placed at each end of a line, or where one type of line changes to another, where it abuts a bay marking or a zig-zag line and at a point where a vertical sign indicates the time period changes, but the road marking remains the same."
The following photograph shows my vehicle at approximately 2315 hours on 6th February 2011 (my vehicle is the red estate car):
The road markings in the area in which I had stopped do not have the required transverse marks at the end nearest the camera, therefore varying from the prescribed regulation. It appears that the lines have never had the transverse marks as required and have therefore been painted incorrectly, according to the DfT's Traffic Signs Manual, but also, most importantly, according to TSRGD (2002) and Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984.
I therefore contest that whilst my vehicle was stopped on the 'double yellow lines', these lines were not as prescribed by the regulation and therefore cannot be enforced.
I am therefore not guilty of the offence.
I would like to bring to your attention the case of Davies v Heatley [1971] R.T.R 145, when it was ruled that:
“Because by s.64(2) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 traffic signs shall be of the size, colour and type prescribed by regulation, if a sign the contravention of which is an offence contrary to s.36 is not as prescribed by the regulation, no offence is committed if the sign is contravened, even if the sign is clearly recognisable to a reasonable man as a sign of that kind”
This case law negates any possibility of the use of a de minimis non curat lex principle in traffic sign cases.