Discussions with the BSM and other Bristol Driving Schools

We always have a special place in our coverage for driving schools, as they have to teach beginners the hard art of driving and parking in a city which, excluding Clifton, is anti-car.

Here, up in Filton. Evolution WM10YHO show that the way to park is up on the pavement.

In front of it, a shared space. This eliminates the pavement entirely, and makes for some fun high-speed chicanes.

Speaking of driving schools, our ongoing discussion with one has had a new comment. The instructor does provide some good insight into what it's like driving a bus in the city, so those commenters slagging off FirstBus drivers should really save their anger for FirstBus management.

He also raises the issue of which laws should be ignored first:

I completely agree with people should not park on double yellow lines or zig zags or to close to junction corners all of which cause a danger to other road users but I do not count parking 2 wheels on the pavement in a very narror street that was never meant for parked cars in the first place as the same level of offence.

We don't bother with making decisions about which action is more defensible than others. We ignore them all, hence save time thinking about which action is more right than others.

We also note that we haven't seen that particular driving school in our database. The driving school that most pops is the British School of Motoring. The BSM may have more market share, but they are to be commended for something else: they are the only driving school that we have documented teaching people how to park in Montpelier. The other schools, they pick you up, then take you somewhere safe to learn to drive. The BSM actually hold their lessons in Montpelier.

In-town, in Richmond Road, Montpelier, we have a heartwarming sight. No, not the cyclist going up the hill with the Sainsbury's bag on the handlebars -it's the BSM instruction car WV60WJF.

We don't think driving and parking in Monty has its own test yet, so we're assuming it's a lesson. As Richmond Road is one of the hardest to drive and park on, we congratulate the BSM for showing their pupils the way forward -or at least the way up on the pavement without damaging your wheels, hitting the wall or paying the wingmirror tax on the way up the road.

So far, nobody from the BSM has got in touch with us. However, we are pleased to have video coverage of a discussion between some under-employed tax-dodger and the BSM car WR60CUY, which can be seen driving into the ASL on the red light: the bicycle doesn't get their green light until Shaldon Road is on red, so the car has had five seconds of red before it comes to a halt.

When queried about what the driver thinks the penalty for driving into an ASL is, the driving instructor comes back with the correct answer: anyone who cares about such things doesn't have a life. We actually think this summarises the entire country's cycling activist groups: they only do it because they don't have real lives.

Congratulations to the BSM for putting this tax dodger in their place!

Does extra parking calm traffic? Yes

We're going to be looking at the Clifton "calming traffic through more parking" plans, to show that this isn't really a self-centred proposal by the Clifton Parking Faction (our comrades, the Keep Parking Free team), but instead a dedicated attempt to reduce risk in a busy city.

Here is the Shaldon Road/Muller Road Junction. Our secretly camera-instrumented traffic dodger is not waiting the ASL we paid our tax money for, apparently because "you get run over by buses turning left on the left turn light, or buses turning right"

• At 0:04 a car parked with its hazard lights on, some L-plate vehicle, we believe.
• At 0:08 the tax-dodger pulls up to go straight on, even though there are no markings on the road to indicate that this is permitted.
• At 1:23 in this dull video (and people wonder why we text in our cars at junctions. This is why), a bus turns right.
• At 1:27, behind the camera, the bus comes to a halt, as it cannot get past the parked car, not with the queue of cars waiting to turn right.
• At 1:31 someone sounds their horn. We are not sure who. Either its the silver car behind the bus, or a car behind the bicycle complaining that they are in the way.
• At 1:40 there are now five cars behind the bus, the traffic speed has been reduced to 0 km/h. No pedestrians will get hit by cars now.
• At 1:46 the green light reaches Shaldon Road, the tax-dodger pedals forward through a junction that is now blocked by stationary cars. Any cars behind them will not be moving, hence their speed is also 0 km/h: again, safety at work.
• At 1:50 the known subversive weaves their way through the now traffic-calmed junction, so ensuring that if there were any pedestrians in Station Lane, they would not get run over by a speeding cyclist.

There we have it then. A single L-plated car can traffic calm a busy junction, reducing vehicle speeds by 15 km/h, that is, from 15 km/h to 0 km/h.

This shows how the addition of extra parking spaces can calm hazardous junctions, and is not merely an attempt by a group of self-centred Clifton residents to add extra parking for their extra vehicles. Although that is, of course, a side-benefit, one that other traffic calming ideas: bike parking, trees and build-outs don't over, which is why it is the only form of traffic calming that we, the Bristol Traffic team approve of.
Update: added the video

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.

A local driving school discusses the highway code

Our coverage of the anti-car streets of Horfield generated some comments from 2nd2none driving school, who seemed to misinterpret our photos of one of their instructors cars parked on the pavement as some form of criticism. Nothing could be further from the truth! We are merely jealous that the instructor who lives in the area has some empty pavement outside their house that they can call their own. In the inner city we can spend twenty minutes driving round looking for some space on a buildout or zebra crossing, yet in the suburbs, there is a bit of pavement every household can call their own. The only time we've ever said anything mildly critical of this driving school was when we caught them parking legally in Montpelier, because that's failing to teach people the local skills. Robbies driving school never gets caught doing that.

First, they say:

by this comment you dont actually drive and are simply a busy body with nothing better to do than ride around complaining about trivial things like this.

Bristol Traffic is a community project that exists to document, not take sides. You appear to have taken our coverage as some form of criticism, for which we must apologise.

Anyway, the driving school made some valid points, the first one being:

we teach our pupils to park correctly but anyone can clearly see that these roads are far to small to do that.
...
at times parking on the pavement is unavoidable as to keep the road clear for other users.

Exactly. There is the theory "don't park on places you aren't allowed to", and practice "park where you need to" -and its the difference between the two which we find fascinating, and why driving school and L-plated cars get extra coverage that normal cars don't usually merit. We aren't criticising, merely observing and documenting.

Now, -and this is where it gets interesting- some people replies to the driving school's comments, not agreeing with them, but instead pointing out the bit of the highway code that discusses parking on pavements! This is shocking! Even more so when at more than one of the people replying claimed to be a contributor to the site! We shall have to pay more attention to who we let submit photographs and videos, as some of them clearly hold different opinions from our own -and the rest of the tax paying motorists in the city who subsidise their pedestrian lifestyle. See that? Pedestrian. It's come to mean "slow". There's a hint there.

Fortunately, the driving school replied and made a key point that wins the argument:

as for the highway code, this is a rule book that was written in 1931 with approximately 2 million cars on the road and the motor car being a non essential commodity, not the 27 million cars that now exist on this small island. There simply isnt enough road space for driving or parking and Bristol has one of the worst managed road systems of any city's.

This is precisely what we think, which is why we exist to document how utterly out of touch the highway code is, such as its complete lack of exemptions for anyone like us doing deliveries in town.

Look at this white van, WP57WGW, parked over a zebra crossing at the bottom of Cotham Hill December 8 2010! Zebra crossings and belisha beacons are a 1930s idea -time to move on!

Look at N&C deliveries truck N6MOV, who know that unloading pallets takes priority over solid white "do not cross lines" and double yellow lines alongside them on the Cotham Hill on December 8. Yellow lines? Obsolete! Time to move on!

Again -what a coincidence- here on Cotham Brow, December 8, Falafel King's delivery van WR58GWG is parked up on the pavement on double yellow lines. Yes, the old highway code says you must not do this, but if you need to get falafels into van, what else can you do? Double yellow lines? Pavements wide enough for pedestrians? Obsolete! Time to move on!

We close, however, with this video of the streets in Horfield round where the 2nd2none car was spotted, giving viewers from outside the city a harsh introduction to this area's problems. The roads aren't wide enough for cars to park two abreast, and the alternative -park on one side walking a bit- would involve walking a bit. As for double parking -forget it! These aren't the wide streets of Clifton.

The 2nd2none driving school must feel so proud as they drive round these streets, seeing what may be many former happy customers, not only having got past the test, but parking in the streets the way people in our city really need to do -even in the parts of town where there are still spaces on the other side of the road.

And of course, if you want to get new customers for your motor vehicles, there is the tilleys tactic, namely co-opting the bike path, footpath or pavement to sell your wares. Every pedestrian whose route is obstructed by a driving school vehicle will realise that driving not only gets them round town better, it lets them park conveniently afterwards, and so will be more tempted to spend the money to learn to drive.

Keiths Driving and Parking School

Along dovercourt road, we see a member of Keiths Driving School and a paying customer getting their paveparking right.

Note how

• the wheels are all aligned
• it is further in than the nissan micra, so should avoid being scraped by passing traffic
• the driver has left enough space for a pedestrian to pass

Learning such skills are what makes the difference between a low-end driving school and a high-end one. We just hope that the driving examiner recognises the harsh truth about Horfield's parking problems, and doesn't live a noddy-land world where people park on the roads and even then not opposite junctions or within 50 feet of a corner.

2nd2none shows how it's done

Yes we've seen this car before. The miracle that is an internet-scale index/search engine tells us we saw WR08HXK in exactly the same place in Chedworth Road, Horfield, back in March.

Well, before your customers are ready for the pavements of Monty, you need to teach them how to get on and off the kerb safely, and quiet roads like this with plenty of dropped kerbs are ideal. One issue though: six months? And their customer is still learning? That's not good.

A polite refusal

Sachin,

Sadly, we must decline your offer to write articles on our site in exchange for links back to some paying customer of yours for the following reasons

1. You have not spent enough time reading the articles, merely searched for driving school on blogspot, observed our pagerank and thought that you'd like some of it. If you had spent more time on our site, you would have realised that your underpaid copy-editors will not be up to the high standards maintained by our volunteers.
2. We have quite enough high quality content of our own, and more in the pipeline. The problem we have is not in getting photographs or videos, it is in coming up with prose that is entertaining enough to accompany it.
3. On our comments page, we explicitly say "No adverts, no spam, no requests for cross linking. We will only be rude." You have fallen foul of this clause, hence this online feedback session.
4. We like to consider Google and MSFT/Bing strategic partners, while also maintaining a good working relationship with Yahoo! and Facebook, with whom we share a common codebase for our data mining activities. Linking to tier-three Australian driving school web sites would damage these relationships.
5. Your SEO customer's web site -to which we graciously link to for free- appears to be smug bollocks. This gives us the impression that your driving instructors are the kind who witter on about he correct colour of driving gloves to wear, not today's problems of how to post a positive comment on Facebook from your phone about the woman on the crossing you nearly hit without crashing into the car in front of you in the traffic jam.

Rest assured, there is a special place for driving instructors on our site, and we look forward to the opportunity to cover your customers there at some point in the future. Perhaps one of our Australian readers can provide some photographs for the coverage.

Yours,

The Bristol Traffic Project

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sachin sachin@webprofits.com.au
Date: 19 October 2010 08:33
Subject: We would like to write an article for your site
To: bristol.traffic at gmail dot com


Hey there,

We have been reading the articles on your website and are very impressed with the quality of your information.

We have a team of copywriters who specialize in writing articles on various topics and would like to write an original article for you to use on your website – this article will not be used anywhere else on the Internet.

In exchange all we ask is that we can have one or two links within the body of the article back to one of our sites. You can view a sample of the quality of our articles at

If you are interested in having us write an article for your website please just let me know and we would be more than happy to have one written for you within two weeks.

Kind regards,

Sachin

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!

Monty week: someone's getting let down

This was a shock to us. A space big enough for three cars outside that fine drinking establishment, the Beaufort. Very tempting to pull the Bristol Traffic white van in there on this weekday morning and have a few beers. But who should indicate and then pull in before we get a chance to execute the plan? A driving instructor.

We understand why there is a space -it's the Friday before the bank holiday weekend, and many people are off in their cars and vans. But whoever is paying for the driving lesson is expecting to learn the skills for the city, our city, a city where a gap four vehicles long is so rare that it will go down in Montpelier folklore, like the time someone managed to get a stolen car a fair distance over the footbridge from Hurlingham Road.

While technically legal, parking this way isn't going to give the paying customer the training they need. Drivers in this city need to park two wheels up on the pavement! You need to pull out without indicating, as game theory implies the enemy -and every other road user is the enemy- will behave differently if they think you are looking when you pull out.

Our reporter apparently told the instructor of for his behaviour, and we shall report this incident to the city's driving instructor authority. The 2nd2None driving school is normally impeccable.

Monty Week: robbies driving school

Again, we see how some driving schools teach proper Montpelier-style driving skills.

Today, FD59EPK of Robbies Driving school - a regular contributor to our site- shows an important technique: how best to block a bike lane with double yellow lines while you shop. The secret: put your hazard lights on.


The flashing lights says "only five or ten minutes" or "important", so they are useful tools to use. Our Monty MOT will check that they work, it's the indicators for pulling out/changing lanes/turning that won't be checked for.

When the Stokes Croft Tesco mini-mart is opened behind where the car is,  knowing how to park here will be an invaluable skill. This bike lane -and the one opposite- will be only shoppers parking available.

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!