Parking on double yellow lines these days carries a risk. You may be fined, or your car may be damaged, impounded or even lost altogether. The owner might, of course, be extremely lucky and return to find it untouched.
Knowing the risks, who would choose to park on double yellow lines in the first place, especially when safer options are available?
The parallel with the Good Friday agreement is clear. The impasse, the argument goes, suggests that further attempts at progress should be deferred until the autumn. In other words, the negotiating process should be "parked" pending calmer times.
Such an approach begs the question: will times be calmer in a few months? Precisely, will there be sufficient pro-agreement support to ensure that the political institutions are allowed to bed down?
The omens are not favourable.
Parking would be an admission of failure, however qualified. No further progress on such critical is sues as decommissioning, demilitarisation, policing and removing the UUP's veto on meetings of the North-South Council would present a picture of serious disagreement between the main signa tories of the agreement. In the context of an imminent Westminster election, such a picture would hardly instil confidence in those who voted so overwhelmingly for the agreement less than three years ago.
A further erosion of pro-agreement unionist support would be the least of surprises in such circumstances. Pursuing in a vigorous and comprehensive manner all the outstanding issues must surely offer a more hopeful prospect. That is what the SDLP has proposed so that the whole process can move away from the protracted and so far unsuccessful and futile bilateral approach followed in recent times.
This approach has resulted in what Mark Durkan has described as the "privatising" of the process. Only those directly involved in each bilateral meeting have been privy to what is being said. No one else, not even both governments, which have to rely on each other's reports of their own bilaterals, is privy to the whole picture.
Parties emerge from such talks claiming no progress has been made, that the situation has regressed, that there is bad faith on the other side etc. The blame game is indulged in with no real opportunity to challenge such claims, let alone examine the basis on which they are made. Little wonder that suspicions grow of deals being done, of promises made and then unmade, of trade-offs and trade-ins.
This is not how the Good Friday agreement was achieved. It was the product of considerable concerted effort. While the process also proceeded through bilateral and multilateral contacts, there was always a plenary context in which all participants had the opportunity to be involved and so maintain the forward momentum.
A return to a more comprehensive context would at least offer the possibility of retrieving that momentum and leave parties and both governments with fewer hiding places.
On the issue of decommissioning, for instance, are we all not entitled to know what the real difficulties are in moving to honour commitments made last May?
When the suspension was lifted, there was a clear unqualified promise from the IRA to re-engage with the International Commission on Decommissioning. The statement said it would do so in a manner which would elicit maximum public confidence. It contained no qualifications, no references to promises by others except that the suspension was being lifted to allow the political institutions to resume, yet there has been no practical move to honour the IRA's commitment.
No pressure has been put on loyalist paramilitaries to decommission their arms. Worse, elements of the UDA have engaged in a sectarian pipe-bombing campaign directed against the Catholic community, and a bloody feud between the UDA and UVF exploded on the Shankill Road. Meanwhile, Sinn Fein constantly attempts to explain or excuse the failure to see movement on the arms issue, hardly the strongest demonstration that its best influence is being used to attain the required movement.
It argues that the circumstances are not yet right for significant progress on decommissioning, but it refuses to engage anyone else in a meaningful discussion which might help determine what those circumstances could be.
Recently, when asked about decommissioning, Sinn Fein answered on policing and demilitarisation. When the Ulster Unionists are asked about the institutions, they answer about policing and decommissioning.
Is there any better argument for attempting to put everyone's grievances and their responsibilities on the table for all to see, and for all to tackle?
Sinn Fein has argued that according to the Good Friday agreement, decommissioning was a collective responsibility. All the more reason why we should collectively address the issue. It was not intended to be a secret between Sinn Fein and the IRA, or a secret between the loyalist parties and loyalist paramilitaries, only to be revealed at their own choosing. Likewise on policing. While this is crucially important to the SDLP, it is not an issue exclusive to ourselves or to Sinn Fein, the Catholic Church or the GAA. The issue is fundamentally tied to the importance of retaining and strengthening the institutions, as the outcome of the debate should be the devolving of control of the police to those institutions.
Creating a new policing service is central to the successful implementation of the Good Friday agreement, and failure to achieve progress has implications. Every society needs a police service which all sections of that society can identify with, support and join. Our society needs a police service which can roll back lawlessness.
It can be realised. The new kind of politics which the Good Friday agreement promises requires full participation by all sections of society in a new kind of policing.
Much has been done to make this possible. That progress needs to be acknowledged and all parties fully apprised of those achievements as well as of the remaining difficulties. As with decommissioning, a clear explanation of where we stand on policing would enable all parties to use their best influence to resolve those difficulties. Otherwise the recriminations and blame-laying that are already evident will persist and intensify.
While progress on demilitarisation has been taking place, concerns persist as to its real effect. Deep concerns also persist about the UUP and David Trimble's commitments to the full operation of the political institutions.
But it is only in a comprehensive context that it will be possible to test the commitments of all the parties to the full implementation of the agreement.
To this end, the SDLP has proposed that both governments urgently call all pro-agreement parties together. An immediate round-table meeting should begin a regular and inclusive process aimed at progression on all outstanding issues, not just current difficulties. An agenda for progress would include:
An implementation report on the agreement's constitutional, institutional and confidence-building measures.
An assessment of the issues impeding further progress.
An update on decommissioning including a report from Gen John de Chastelain, who should be present.
On policing, the current situation should be outlined, with each party acknowledging that the desired outcome is a service enjoying everyone's trust, control of which can eventually be devolved to the Assembly and Executive.
Proposals from both governments aimed at resolving current difficulties.
A process for progressing all other aspects of the agreement to be agreed, including matters on which no steps have as yet been taken, e.g. the North-South parliamentary body and the North-South forum.
Both governments and all par ties should recommit themselves to the Good Friday agreement and call upon paramilitaries to co-operate in assuring its future progress.
Such an approach would restore confidence that full implementation of the agreement is being vigorously pursued. It is the antithesis of the parking approach.