Saturday 1 November 2008

Gate in Use

This car is parked just off the roundabout between Frenchay Park Road and Broomhill Road.
The sign says "'Gate in Use 24 Hrs keep clear"

Assuming "hrs" means hours, this could be taken to mean "this gate is used by through vehicles at any time of day, so you must not park here". Which clearly the Astra S199MTR has done. So it must mean something else. Such as "This gate is in use as a parking space for S199MTR, all other vehicles must not park here". That makes sense.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Or maybe the driver had watched the gate for an hour before parking and realised the sign was a lie. Such imprecise wording can undermine the credibility of signage and should be altered.

SteveL said...

Exactly. That's why the Internet Engineering Task Force has a document

RFC2119
that lays down the uses of MUST/SHOULD/MAY/MUST NOT etc to ensure that all networking specifications have consistent meaning. They would get their signs right. Something like "This gate may be in use at any time. Cars must not park here"

SP said...

Why assume that the 'use' that is being referred to is vehicular?

It is without question being used 24hrs as a support for the sign.