Turns, lanes, passing and parking
What are you allowed to do at a curb painted yellow?
- Load and unload passengers or freight, for no longer than the posted time. Correct answer
- Stop only long enough to pick up or drop off passengers.
- Park for a limited time shown on a sign or painted on the curb.
Why
Yellow is the loading curb: passengers and freight both, for no longer than the time posted, and in a noncommercial vehicle you are usually required to remain with it while you load. The two wrong answers are the colors it gets confused with. White is passengers only, and only for as long as it takes to pick them up or drop them off, with no freight and no waiting. Green is a time-limited parking space, and the limit is on a sign or painted on the curb itself. The last two are the absolute ones: red means no stopping, standing or parking, except that buses may stop at a red zone marked for buses, and blue is reserved for a disabled person or their driver with a placard or special plate.
Where this comes from
California Driver's Handbook, June 2025 edition. The correct answer is Load and unload passengers or freight, for no longer than the posted time.
The rule behind this one
Turns, lanes, passing and parking in California goes through the whole topic, with the page of the California Driver's Handbook behind every rule.
More on turns, lanes, passing and parking
- You are driving slowly on a two-lane road where it is not safe for anyone to pass, and five cars are now following you. What does the handbook require?
- How close to a fire hydrant may you legally park?
- When does the handbook tell you to use hand-and-arm signals instead of your signal lights?
- You are about to cross an intersection and plan to turn into a driveway just beyond it. When should you turn on your signal?