The AA street watch

Apparently the AA were doing some study last week, trying get some statistics on what people in cities do that is technically "illegal", despite the war on motorists being over.

We think their crowd-sourced approach, while clearly based on our own world-leading experiment, is valid, we do like asking the machines for the data too. It scales better in space and time, generates more defensible data,  suffers from less self-selection bias, and is easier to go through in bulk.

This is why we think the best way for the AA to gain some statistics of where drivers bend the "so called law" would simply be to collect the satnav statistics of their own vehicles, correlating vehicle speeds and parking events with the "legacy" speed limits, double yellow line map, yellow-boxed junctions, etc. This would provide a year-round source of data, completely independent of any selection bias of the reporters.

We invite the AA to provide the Bristol Traffic team with an anonymised copy of such a dataset. Even if our multi-terabyte distributed filestore lacks the storage and compute capacity, we are sure that our strategic partners like Yahoo!, Google and Facebook,  do, and we will apply our world class datamining and Hidden Markov Modelling techniques to show the AA we are pretty good at guessing where their vans and driving school vehicles will park (hint: double yellow lines and pavements, such as here, the double yellow lines of St Michael's Hill).

A lot of people dismiss the AA for being lost in time, pining for the 1950s when cars only made it ten miles before a breakdown, and you'd send a telegram to let your family know you'd made it all the way from Bristol city centre to Filton without a catastrophe. We criticise them for something else: inability to grasp the opportunities that modern technologies bring. Never ask the people, when you can ask the machines.

AA supporting driver safety

There is lots of coverage today in the cycling world that the AA is giving out free helmets and hi-viz tops, to reduce the risk of them being run over as they ride their Boris Bikes around.

Some people are dismissive of this, implying that the AA is doing a publicity stunt that is really a form of blaming-the-victim. Not at all.

The AA is equally concerned about the safety of motorists. Look here, in the junction of Cheltenham Road and Arley Hill at 18:11 on a weekday evening. This van OU10FYG is stationary in the middle of the junction, held up by the vehicles in front; the cars coming up from Bath Buildings or Arley Hill are at risk of running into the van, given that they have both had green lights while this van is busy blocking the junction.

The hi-viz top the driver is wearing will reduce this risk, as it will be easier for cars crossing the junction to see the vehicle blocking the do-not-enter junction, so the driver will be safer. And presumably the AA's insurance costs will be reduced accordingly.

The AA driving school: for the road ahead

The AA driving school car GL60JHH says "for the road ahead" on the back of it.

Technically, up here in Northville, it should say "For the road and half the pavement ahead"

But there probably isn't room for that.

We hope the AA will be on our side, resisting government plans to fine people for parking on the pavement. It's in their interest, not just because increased car ownership increases their breakdown revenue fees, but because their driving school instructors clearly depend on the right too.

AA: putting the customer first

We've not seen this AA van, EJ08XMD, before. Here it is, on Ashley Road. Or to be precise, Ashley Road's Pavement.

As you can see from the cars behind it, the driver could have parked further out, and still not inconvenienced passing cars. Well, probably not. But those AA van wing mirrors, they do stick out, they could brush against someone important driving past: a customer.

The people on the pavement -they don't count. The aren't revenue streams. Every person who chooses to not own a car is lost forever. Every household that opts to go from two cars to one: the revenue drops in half. And in today's troubled economy, customers are not things you don't want to lose.

That's why when Edmund King gets up on TV to speak up for us, "the motorist", he's really thinking of us "the customer", and our cars, "the revenue stream. We know this because whenever he's on telly, he's going on about outrageous fuel costs, road tax costs. Not once does he ever complain about the excessive cost of Car Insurance in this country, because that's the AA. Similarly, no discussion of how much full AA breakdown cover costs, or whether, given the improved reliability of motor vehicles since the days of British Leyland, whether it makes any sense. You can tell people who grew up in those days as they are the people who phone you when they get to some destination twenty miles away. "I got home", they say, as if we still worry that the Allegro or Mini will not get that far.

For that reason, we don't trust anything Edmund King says. The van drivers may be on our side, but management isn't.

AA in stokes croft

Lovely to see the AA van EU08CMD out rescuing someone whose car had broken down in the stokes croft "bike lane"

We use quotes around "bike lane" as we have never once seen a cyclist using it.

We do not understand why not, or why they are so ungrateful for all that our road tax does for them.

The Stokes Croft Bike Lane! Sponsored by the AA!

British School of Motoring: teaching you how to shop

It's not enough to learn how to drive, you need to know the lifestyle -how to sprint round the city, which signs to ignore, where best to buy some discounted vodka. This is why we are please to get a photo from cyclista, showing the Bristol School of Motoring car WR59OJY on the double yellow lines outside the Tesco Express on Bedminster North Street.

Some people are surprised that Tesco Expresses -which target passing motorists- are always on main roads with double yellow lines outside. Those people miss the point. Those double yellow lines ensure short-stay parking for passing customers. They put the shops on main roads as that is where the passing customers are.

Returning to the car, look how perfectly it is aligned with the pavement, the wheels perfectly straight. That is skilled parking!

The AA say zombies are a problem -we say it's salsa dancers

One way we calibrate our postings against the rest of the motoring press-release agencies is to compare what they say with what we've been saying.

Recently, the AA that's been complaining most about zombies, in their high publicity "ipod zombies are the enemy" press event, where they pointed out that zombies "can be lethal for pedestrians, cyclists and car drivers."

Well, yes, there is a special zombie event in the city scheduled for this weekend -2.8 hours later.

But: how often do you see zombies in the way? Where is the defensible data?

All the AA have is the insurance claims from the subset of people who insure their car -and then the subset who insure with the AA- and those people are financially motivated to blame the pedestrians rather than saying they were distracted by the phone call they were making.

Furthermore, what does the AA know about zombies? What kind of zombies? Are we talking 1973 US-shopping-mall class zombie, or a modern 28-days later or Evil Dead 2 class of Zombie? Different, the latter are much harder to kill and far more dangerous to us car drivers. They are harder to run over and they can jump in through your window and try and bite your neck out, at least according to the film's we've seen.

We do like to consider ourselves Britain's premier data-driven traffic news site. We back up our claims with defensible data -photos and videos-, and we like to tie it in to current scientific thinking. Which is where we have to criticise the AA. We have yet to see any Zombies in our streets.

All we have is a truck parked in the showcase bus route on Gloucester Road one morning with an advert for Virgin Trains on it "Don't Go Zombie" -yet it implies that the zombie are in the cars, on the M5, not stuck somewhere near Sheffield on the one daily Virgin XC train to Scotland, or roaming our streets endangering car drivers.

We also have the scientific research behind zombies, behind their decision making. The AA: not a thing, just some comments about insurance claims. This misses out on this seminal presentation on Zombie walking/climbing algorithms, how zombies can choose to attack on trajectories which are hard for us, the humans, to predict, yet which are fairly easy for subhuman intelligences to come up with.

This is the best ever paper on Zombie routing algorithms ever written, yet the AA doesn't even bother to cite it or discuss its implication for vehicle-assisted-driving technologies. This makes us suspect that the AA and its "independent" traffic science group are just making things up to suit their prejudices.

Being a scientifically focused, data-driven group, we are therefore pleased to announce that we do have hard proof that Samba Bands are a bigger problem on our streets, be it St Paul's


or St Werburgh's


That's two videos of Samba bands blocking our streets. None of Zombies. And a citation of the best ever paper on Zombie routing to date.

When will the AA notice this growing problem and issue a press release denouncing Samba bands? Months after us, we expect. And even then, it will not be from in-the-field monitoring of near-miss incidents, but purely by people claiming for damaged caused to their cars by uninsured samba bands.

Monty Week: British School of motoring show the skills

A first driving lesson. Sitting in the car, getting the mirrors right, adjusting the seat, getting ready to set off. Scary.

Along with our proposal of a separate Monty MOT test ("no wingmirrors"), we think a separate driving test, one that reflects the reality of these streets. Not parallel parking: paveparking.

Which is why we are delighted to see this British School of Motoring (BSM) car WR59WXZ showing one of their customers how to drive properly for this part of the city. By popping up far enough on the pavement to stop anyone getting past, less worries about accidentally clipping them as you turn onto the road.




We are so tempted to phone up the number on the back of the car or go to their web site and ask for a pavement parking lesson like this. Unfortunately, the terms of conditions of the DVLA's "please place your license in this prepaid envelope" letter appears to prevent such actions. Perhaps readers may wish to enquire themselves?

Update: reg# is WR59FXZ -thank you Benjamin!