Is there an ordinance that prohibits parking of commercial
vehicles in residential neighborhoods?
“Is there an ordinance that prohibits parking of commercial vehicles in residential neighborhoods? A neighbor has a truck that is parked on the street every afternoon until early morning. Aside from being an eyesore, it wakes my family up when he starts the thing up every morning at 4 or 5 a.m. and leaves it running for several minutes.”
Red Phone: Dear Sleepless In The Suburbs, The Gilroy Municipal Code does indeed regulate parking of commercial vehicles in residential areas and oversized vehicles on public streets. It is illegal for anyone to park a commercial vehicle weighing more than 10,000 pounds in a residential area.
If you don’t have your scale handy, don’t worry. In addition, the code prohibits an oversized vehicle to be parked on any public or private street within the city for longer than 48 hours every two weeks. An oversized vehicle is any vehicle or combination of vehicles that exceeds 22 feet in length, seven feet in height or seven feet in width.
If you think the vehicle meets these qualifications, you can call Gilroy police at 846-0350.
Are illegally parked drivers at fault?
“I heard once if a vehicle is illegally parked any accident that occurs involving it is the responsibility of the illegally parked person. Is this true? I had also heard that uninsured or unregistered cars parked on public property are automatically illegally parked and supposedly fall under the same rule if involved in accident. Is this true?”
Red Phone: Dear To Park Or Not To Park, The person who is illegally parked is not always at fault.
“The negligent driver probably would bear the brunt of the fault if not all of it,” said attorney Neal Kuvara, of Kuvara Law Firm, who has more than 40 years of experience in accident claims. “The party who parked illegally may be comparatively held at fault should the reason for the statute or code be that cars not park in a certain spot for safety reasons. However, if the reason for the code is to keep the neighborhood free of cars – to keep it more attractive for example – then the illegally parked vehicle will not be held responsible.”
California is one of 13 states that follows a pure comparative negligence system. This system allows someone to recover a portion of the damages even if the other person was partially negligent or caused the injury.
“You have to look at the totality of circumstances case by case,” said Emery Ledger, founder of Ledger & Associates, which has law offices throughout California. “An expired meter has no bearing on causation. But if someone is illegally parked in a red zone and someone hits them, you could argue comparative fault for the other person since there was insufficient space. Being unregistered or uninsured has no relevance .”
It is still up to each individual driver to pay attention to potential objects that may be in the way and avoid them.
Person needs help finding rooster
“I recently contacted the Gilroy police since it appears that we have someone in our neighborhood who has a rooster crowing at all hours of the morning and night. The police told me that it was my responsibility to find out where the rooster was and then contact them and they would be able to determine if the rooster was allowed. Unfortunately, it’s usually at 4 a.m. when the lovely rooster starts his calls. And it’s difficult to tell which backyard this rooster is coming from. Can anyone help? The neighborhood I am referring to is near Sunrise and Tapestry drives.”
Red Phone: Dear Sleepless On The Fringes, As you probably know, you are about a 1,000 feet south of the city border. It is illegal to have roosters or other livestock in an area that is not zoned for agricultural use, according to the Gilroy Municipal Code. But the sound could be carrying from a nearby farm to the north. So if any early risers know where the rooster is located, let Red Phone know. And we’ll pass it on to the caller.
