What does the no stopping sign mean?

This sign is posted along the curb ahead of you. How is it stricter than a no parking sign?

It bans stopping at all, including a brief halt to drop someone off

No parking still lets you pause to load or unload. This sign does not, and it goes where a stopped vehicle would block a sightline, a lane or a crossing, so even a few seconds at the curb is the problem it was put there to stop.

You want to let a passenger out and this sign is on the pole above you. What may you do?

Keep moving and find somewhere past the sign to pull over

No stopping means the vehicle may not come to rest here for any reason of your own, not even for the moment it takes somebody to open a door. These signs go up where a stopped vehicle would block sightlines, a bus lane or a moving stream of traffic, so the space has to stay clear.

This sign covers the stretch of curb where you were going to pull in and let a passenger out. What does it require?

Keep going, you may not halt here even to let somebody out

No stopping is stricter than no parking: the vehicle must not come to rest here at all, however briefly. These stretches are the ones where a stopped vehicle would hide a crossing, block a lane or sit on a blind bend. Hazard lights change nothing, because the danger is where the vehicle is, not whether it is noticed.

This sign runs along a stretch of road, and in Quebec it may be lettered ARRÊT INTERDIT. A passenger asks to be let out here. What are you allowed to do?

Nothing, you may not bring the car to a halt along this stretch at all

A no stopping sign is stricter than a no parking sign, because it removes even the brief pause for a passenger or a delivery. Stretches get this treatment where a halted vehicle would hide someone crossing, block a bus lane, or leave a following driver nowhere to go. Carry on to where stopping is allowed and set your passenger down there.

You are driving through a stretch marked by this sign when the traffic ahead of you halts at a red light. What should you do?

Stop with the traffic, because obeying a signal or an officer comes first

The sign bans stopping by choice, not the stops that traffic and traffic control force on you. Reading it any other way would send you through a red light, which is both the greater offence and the greater danger.

Traffic ahead of you comes to a standstill while you are in a stretch marked by this sign. Have you broken the rule by stopping?

No, a stop forced by traffic or a traffic control device is not what the sign forbids

The sign governs stops you choose to make, so being held by stopped traffic, a red light or an officer directing traffic does not breach it. What matters is that you do not use the space to wait, load or park once the traffic in front of you moves again.