(WSBT) It happens daily on some of our area's busiest streets. People drive on certain South Bend roads like they're four lanes, even though they're not marked that way. The drivers aren't risking a ticket, but police say they may be risking their safety.

On any given day you can find drivers on Jefferson Boulevard, Ironwood Drive, and several other roads treating the roads as though they were four lanes wide.

But what you may not realize is if the road isn't marked for four lanes, it's not four lanes. These are two lane roads. The reason they're wider is for parking.

“If Jefferson were to be marked for four lanes parking would be lost, so people would have no opportunity to have great numbers of visitors,” South Bend City Engineer Carl Littrell told WSBT News.

Littrell says in some cases roads would have to be widened, which could mean a loss of property. Plus, turning the road into four lanes creates drainage issues, which could have cars traveling through standing water. And, he says, studies show four lanes are not needed.

“The traffic volume is not high enough to make four lanes for use 24 hours a day,” Littrell said.

South Bend Police say these roads are a safety concern. But lines don't mark the right lane as parking, so it's not illegal to drive there. You won't get a ticket, but police don't think it's safe.

“There could be a car parked in front of the house, just sort of a stray car parked on the curb line,” said Capt. Phil Trent of the South Bend Police Department. “At night it’s fairly dark there, it’s hard to see, and that could really cause a serious crash too.”

And Trent says if an accident happens while driving in that right lane, drivers might have a tough time explaining that to their insurance company.

There are some stretches of road meant to be four lanes, normally around intersections. That allows cars to go around drivers making left turns.

The bottom line -- if the road isn't marked as two lanes on each side, it's not.