Disc parking

The current unified EU parking disk regulations allow for a wider range of time restrictions that are indicated on the signs.

The standard parking clock can show a full twelve hours, with additional marks for each half-hour.

The legal requirements are that "parking is allowed when the vehicle shows a parking-disk that is easily readable from the outside and whose clock-hand points to the mark of the half hour that follows the time of arrival".

[citation needed] The latest departure-time is calculated from the displayed arrival-time on the parking-disk based on the indicated maximum parking-time.

Large European car rental companies such as Europcar and Sixt lend their vehicles equipped with a parking disk.

These are commonly left in places such as the two side bags in the front doors and the inside of the cover of the car log book.

[citation needed] In general, clock discs must be set with the arrow pointing to a mark and not any of the white space between, or else it would be invalid and could result in a traffic ticket.

Disk-parking was first introduced in Paris in 1957[2] and with a disc, developed in Vienna, in the town of Vienna beginning 1959,[3] adopted in Kassel in 1961[4]—in both cases the new parking system was introduced in an attempt to move away long-term parkers without erecting parking meters, which was considered too expensive.

The standardized clock disc was introduced as federal law in Germany in November 1981,[1] and similar designs were adopted in other European countries.

Dans l'agglomération parisienne certaines règles ont été fixées pour le stationnement des véhicules : celui-ci peut s'effectuer des deux côtés dans les rues larges, d'un seul côté si le stationnement bilatéral ne permet pas à deux files de voitures de circuler simultanément, cette disposition s'appliquant également dans les voies où la circulation s'effectue à sens unique.

Il est totalement interdit dans les rues étroites ou sur certains points particuliers signalés à l'attention (disques, grès rouges) ou bien connus (arrêts d'autobus, stations de taxis, etc.).

Similarly to the test on the Champs-Élysées it imposed a maximum of 1 hour however it used another method of control: the prefect René Genebrier had accepted the proposal from engineer Robert Thiebault to use a device with a clock face that were to be set by the car driver to the time of arrival.

The Franklin Roosevelt Avenue was switched to a maximum of 30 minutes at the time that would a require a different clock disc.

On 6 December 2007 the Ministry of the Interior implemented a regulation on a parking disc that would only have one window to show the arrival time.

No other signposting was used in these blue zones to mark the controlled space - instead the parking discs showed the regulations on the back side.

After the EU level had asked for a common parking disc with a single clock face in 1979 it was Germany to introduce a new design in November 1981 already – the "Verkehrsblattverlautbarung Nr.

This design was introduced by the director of urban planning Aladar Pecht so that it would also be nicknamed "Pechtscheibe" (Pecht-Disk).

The introduction of the EU parking disc in 1994 came about with a little variation as it required to set the mark to the next quarter of an hour:(§ 4 Abs.

3[8]) Der Zeiger hat die Ankunftszeit anzuzeigen, wobei auf die dem Zeitpunkt des Abstellens folgende volle Viertelstunde aufgerundet werden kann.Consequently, the parking disc design has four marks per hour instead of two (see appendix 1 in the statutory regulation of 1994[9]).

This means disks from other EU countries which mention fewer languages, are not accepted in Belgium[10] There are blue zone parking spaces in many cities in the Netherlands.

Although some local authorities such as those in Cumbria accept a piece of paper with the arrival time written on it,[18] others such as Pendle do not.

European standard parking disc
Example display of a parking disc
Swiss parking-disk (early 70s). Selected arrival time shows at the left window, departure at the right. Other side of disk is used for afternoon parking. Disc was a sales promotion for UBS bank.
French parking disc since 2007
German parking disc of 1981
Austrian parking disc of 1994
Swedish parking disc