We are sent an email by "Mike" showing the proper way to get the kids to school, here with a stretch limo outside Colstons Primary School on, what, Cotham Grove The submitter of this photograph seems a bit, well, unhappy about the incident, and we can see why: a vehicle like this can take up the entire school keep clear area, so stopping other parents doing their dropoffs.
However, people need to recognise the hard truth: taking the kids to school in the family 4x4 is, well, common. Twenty-five years ago, yes, most kids walked to school and those that got driven were taken there in the mini metro, but times have moved on. From the metro, to the VW polo, then the VW Golf becomes car #2, now it's one of the little Audi or BMWs, while family car #1 has grown up from an estate to something with more status. Nothing has more status than a stretch limo -which CN55PZS clearly is.
Jealousy, that's what the other parents are suffering from.
Sometimes the congestion in the city is so bad that people take to the air, but if you try that in a helicopter you soon discover that not only is the cost of fuel excessive, everyone on the ground assumes that there's trouble on the ground and comes out watch. You could create a riot just by hovering over Bedminster on a Saturday night.
What else then? Obviously: balloons.
But here there's still heating bills to run up, and the fact they tend to only go west to east.
This is why inbound commuters from the west of the city use them in the mornings -maybe even to Bath- but other mechanisms are needed to get home. We propose allowing ballonists to get towed by the trains from Bath to Bristol, but we think some of the bridges may cause problems. Experiments are required.
Incidentally, this post-RPZ photo of Cotham Road shows some consequences of the actions. The bus- only parking area is now only used by buses; school-run parents have many free parking spaces, and, interestingly, bike/car conflict is reduces, as now the bicycles can get to one side of the road. Admittedly, there are a couple of build outs and the odd car for them to swerve round, but it is actually easier to drive along -at least until you get to Cotham Brow. For everyone but the commuters who wanted to park here, it's better.
Which causes us to worry about these Clifton proposals to add more parking "For traffic calming". We don't want calmed traffic. We want to drive round fast without bicycles in our way. Yes, we'd like more parking, but it shouldn't be at the expense of slowing us down, or providing short-stay parking areas marked in yellow lines.
We'll be looking at "the Clifton proposals" more next week.
One theory is that as more people cycle, the more we, the important people, will expect bicycles. That's true, but it doesn't mean we welcome them. Instead it just makes us more frustrated.
Take this video of MJ06OSJ, going up Cotham Hill. They've been held up by a line of bicycles, and when they do finally a chance to overtake, there's another bicycle coming in the other directi0n. What to do?
As the video shows, the correct action is: continue anyway. If you've been held up by one bicyclist, you may as well punish another with a near death experience. It may discourage them from trying the same trick next time.
Some of the cyclists think that if there are enough of them on our roads the rest of society will suddenly welcome them, it will suddenly become safer, and that everyone will happily dance around singing Dutch songs. Well, we have some bad news there
The increase in the number of people cycling, combined with the rises in petrol's costs, merely makes us angrier and more resentful
It's not enough they aren't paying to use the roads, they hold us up. The more bicycles, the more we get held up. We can experiment with this by secretly instrumenting cyclists and then collecting the videos, and seeing if conflict increases or decreases over time.
Here we see white van YB06BDO being held up by a bicycle as it turns into Cotham Hill from Aberdeen Road. It stops. What does the rider have to complain about? At least this driver wasn't on the phone.
He stopped, polite discussion followed. None of this road-rage stuff. A friendly city. Why do they complain so?
Aberdeen Road, Cotham. A one way street with the main entrance on Hampton Road, just past the car parked by the dropped-kerb build out with its hazard lights on. A bicycle locked to the road sign. We've covered this road before, mainly on the topic of school runs and parking.
Never looked at the houses much. Student houses. You can tell. The driveway converted into bicycle parking.
But this day: different. A police car with the engine on sits outside one of the houses.
This is where the current suspect in the murder of Joanna Yeates was apparently arrested.
We have nothing to add on this topic; Bristol Culture has done a better local analysis than the rest of the country's press. What we can do is show people what Canynge Road, where Joanna lived, is like. It's never had a mention here before for one simple reason: it's not interesting enough. It's a quiet road between Clifton and the Downs, most notable for providing parking for zoo visitors in summer. Otherwise, sleepy. Or it was.
Now the police stand outside one of the houses; a camera man stands across the road. One person is believed to have been murdered in the house just before Christmas, two other residents have (separately) been arrested and questioned -one of them charged. Whatever the outcome, Canynge Road will be tainted for a long time -like Cut-Throat Lane in St Werburgh's. It has gone from what was a quiet route for cyclists (it's faster to drive on the parallel road as this one is too narrow at the Clifton end), and somewhere for people to live, to a road with a dark history.
In Clifton and nearby, there's now a clear feeling of relief whenever someone who is potentially the murder is being detained by the police: that it is suddenly safer. Because Clifton is a safe part of town, and such things don't happen there, the way they do in Patchway, or down in Somerset, in Cheddar. Things that happen there don't merit national news coverage, despite the grief and suffering the relatives of those people will be going through.
Our coverage of one truck driver giving the pedestrians the abuse they deserve has proved very poplar. We know this as Youtube sent us an email saying "your video might be eligible for the YouTube Partnership Programme, which allows you to make money from playbacks of your video.", which implies more than eight people saw it.
We also got many comments on the video, some of which were sadly negative towards us. luckyeightball said
the only crime here is decent hard working blokes trying to earn a honest living, get pin pointed by some p**ck who walks around filming people, i bet he takes the videos home and masterbates in his garden shed to the thought of knowing he's caused someone grievance, probably lives with his mum too, gimp
Bristol Traffic is a team project, everyone in the city participates. Those of us who work in the Bristol sex industry supply chain don't need to sneak off to the garden shed as we have discounted "access" to the professionals who provide their services down in Stokes Croft. As we are regulars we even get rebates when things don't work as expected. Plus the wifi doesn't get to the shed.
Humpski2817 said
If I was this driver I would go to you tube and quote their Privacy Complaint Guidelines as I am quite sure you do not have permission to use his image and as the say in the account policies "let us know if videos or comments on the site violate your privacy or sense of safety."
We've discussed this before. You have to give up some expectations of privacy on the streets. Public Place = public. Private place = private. It's an interesting issue though, with Google Streetview being the cutting edge. To launch that service in Germany, they've had to remove the houses and gardens from the view, which means that street views have entire houses missing, so limiting their value. We are glad therefore for your awareness of these issues, though feel you have some more learning on this topic before your statements come off as well-informed. But it's a start.
The most insightful comment came from SuperJonah2010
"i personely believe as a hgv driver that bristol is a hard town to be in.and that the actions of the guy with the cammera are intimidating and the driver would of seen him as a threat!as he said he chased him down the road in his own posting!i would of thought about my load and is that guy pulling a knife or a gun out of his rucksack!it happend to be a camera!my actions would have been the same if not alot worse!what planet is the idiot who posted this video on!"
That really explains some of the issues HGV drivers have in the city. Our taxi driver acquaintances fear late night customers to the edges of the city, bus drivers are scared to stop on Crow Lane (update: plans to sell of the greenery may make it safer). What we hadn't realised up until now was that HGV drivers are scared of pedestrians.
Up until now we viewed them as a hazard. Admittedly, mostly to cyclists, but such incidents close off busy roads for hours, even to vans, - and parked cars. And, because they have better negotiating power in narrow roads, we aren't that fond of HGVs . But we hadn't realised that they were scared of pedestrians! That changes the whole view of things. They must be terrified of doing any of the "shared space" roads like Cotham Hill or Picton Street. Anyone walking down the middle of the road may suddenly get out a firearm or knife and hijack your load! This continuous fear of pedestrians must make the entire city a stressful place to do deliveries -far better to stay in Avonmouth where you don't see people walking around, and if you do, you can call the police and report them.
This fear of highway robbery must also trigger the use of classic military tactics, the key ones being: keep moving and take the high ground.
We can see an example of this at the bottom of Cotham Brow, looking towards the Arches. Our white van is stuck at the lights. We aren't worried about anyone stealing our load as we'll just report to the police that someone else has stolen a "Edmond and Cheggers Inflatable Doll Party Pack" and they'll drive up the A38 following the laughter on the pedestrians until they find the culprits. The Nisa Today lorry was facing the same direction when it swung left into Kingsley Road and got into that debate with the pedestrian about whether they should have indicated before the turn. The answer from a game theory perspective is of course: no, don't signal your intent -it makes it harder for them to plan their attack.
Today we are held up by some lights, cars coming from Cromwell Road are heading up from the Arches to Cotham Brow. This is a narrow road with parking spaces on either side of the road almost deliberately laid out to create conflict -conflict the parking review will leave in. For example, those cars on the left? Short stay parking, with only 40cm of pavement alongside there's no room to get wheels on the pavement, so it creates a choke point -a bit of traffic calming. And a place where a malicious pedestrian could attack a lorry driver and make off with their payload.
The small cars, like the council car, don't have a problem, they pootle up the road. But what of the SITA van S788NNK? The choke point here exposes them to attack -anyone could pop out from the side road hold a knife, a gun, a rolled up newspaper (we've all seen that Bourne Identity film -we know newspapers are weapons), and take their valuable payload of ready-for-recycling cardboard.
How will the SITA drivers handle it? With Military precision.
They seize the enemy territory by going straight onto the pavement. Notice how they do it. No halfhearted "protect the wheels" actions, but a full "take the high ground" operation to get along the pavement and then drop down once they get past the narrowness.
By keeping the forward momentum, the oppo team is left on the defensive, and without the pavement they can't hang back and hope to jump up into the cab as it goes past.
Together, this ensures that the SITA cardboard will reach its destination securely.
This whole notion that lorry and HGV drivers fear pedestrians is going change some of our thinking. In fact it's profound. It explains a lot of city design -like the pedestrian underpasses of the Bearpit, St Paul's and Lawrence Hill roundabouts. They must have gone in not just to keep motor traffic speeds up, but to reduce the risk of pedestrians attacking trucks. It also explains why money needs to be invested in making pedestrians and cyclists feel unwelcome in those parts of the city popular with HGVs -because the drivers don't want them there.
The implications of this discovery are still trickling through our brains, so expect more coverage of the topic in the new year. Until then, all those pedestrians whom we now suspect read this blog -remember, the HGV driver is more scared of you!
Here's the next in our St Michael's Hill Roundabout series, this time looking at how a single cyclist trying to use the route can cause mayhem and destruction.
Normally when the bicycle/wingmirror collision is discussed, it is the cyclist complaining about how they get hit by a car in a hurry. Nobody ever looks at it from the motorists perspective. We may have damaged a wingmirror, but do the cyclists ever compensate us? Most aren't even insured.
Take this scene from a video of our secretly instrumented cyclist, apparently as the car squeezes past them at the traffic island, the car's wing mirror bashes against their handlebars.
The vehicle WR08ADK is lucky to escape from the enraged cyclist, who will probably commit more acts of violence against their Toyota Aygo, and again, without cyclist insurance, it'll be the motorist who picks up the bill.
We would say the motorist's insurers, except for one small detail: WR08ADK doesn't appear in the insurance database. Askmid denies it, while the AA refuse to give it a breakdown quote, "the car is not in the database", they say.
By not being in the database that this car driver not only has to pay for their own vehicle damage, be they wingmirrors or that caused by pedestrians, they cannot even get breakdown cover from the AA. This is unacceptable.
(Incidentally, this isn't a case of misreading the reg #, the car was seen cutting in front of a bike on Cotham Hill last week. It's a car whose # isn't in the database, a "ghost car").
(update: replaced Toyota Auris with Toyota Aygo. Nimble round town, though the wingmirrors and body coloured bumpers put it at a disadvantage when parking or working narrow streets).
Our complainer from the past, "Slug" says they went to the PACT meeting to complain about some car on the pavement. Apparently the Police actually need to see someone obstructed before the vehicle is causing an obstruction.
This is a useful fact to know. From now on, whenever we park our car on the pavement -such as here BS51VDX does on a build-out by Cotham Brow, we shall wait for some family to get a push-chair past, and get a photograph of them as they pass.
With such a photograph, we can demonstrate that our parking did not cause any obstruction, hence is ineligible for any penalty.
We recently nipped over to Cotham Hill was to see if another rumour -parking restrictions removed- was true.
And yes, you can see, while they are resurfacing this road there are no limited waiting markings on the right-hand side of the photo, no double yellows on the other, even the zebra-crossing zig zags are gone.
And look! No vans forced to park on either pavement, leaving the approaching pedestrian to walk down the pavement without getting in our way on the road (merely the pavement, of course), no congestion caused by delivery vans forced to park half on the road, half on the pavement, no meandering cyclists in our way.
This provides clear proof that the cause of congestion is not traffic lights, the way our fellow travellers, the Drivers Alliance, or bus lanes, the way our-man-in-whitehall so believes. No, it is the restrictions on drivers parking where they need to that causes traffic problems in British cities!
Two new bike stands have appeared across the junction, which, along with the three street signs make it impossible to park on this build-out.
Looking at the original site of the bike racks -two bike stands have gone away, but two were replaced, and a van-unfriendly bollard inserted. All the bollards are now in use as sign-mounts
We also found out why the bike stands were moved. The cafe needed some space for tables. That's the green shop all whitewashed windows, which hasn't re-opened since its extended summer break.
We went back to Cotham Hill to see if the bike racks had been taken away, or whether we, the citizens of the city, were forced to discourage walking or cycling ourselves.
A van with the Del Monte man hat was out this morning, but the camera was playing up, so no photo.
What we do have is Monday's van, AG07DVK. Together with VF55GYX and another van with the Del-Monte hat in it, it ensures the uphill bike lane is unusable every weekday morning, and even pedestrians have a hard time getting down here.
What you can't appreciate from these photos is the van is parked just up on the rise of the east-facing hill, so all cars coming up the hill will be forced to swerve into the oncoming bicycle lane precisely when the sun is directly in their eyes. This ensures that when they run over a cyclist they can say "The sun was in my eyes", so downgrading the event to an accident. We like it.
Subtle.
Congratulations, then, to Fredwood Forestry, for their contribution to our city.
One day in the week, our drive up Nugent Hill was interrupted by this woman pushing a bicycle with a small child on it up the road.
Madam, if you are going to push the bike up a hill, could you make it Ninetree Hill, which, having already been closed to cars, is not disrupted by a cyclist walking up it.
Later on in the week, something worse. The entire road closed while officials -in hi-viz- make some film shoot which apparently required no adults in the shot, and cars blocked from this road while these teenagers pretended to play.
Such media coverage will only reinforce the myth that teenagers should ride bicycles and roads are a safe place for them to do it. It is a an affront for our TV licensing tax to be frittered away on pro-cycling propaganda!
The RAC says white vans are up 40% in the last 10 years. We agree. We also think that their role in society needs to be recognised, and just like police and taxis get special parking options, so should us van drivers.
Take corners, for example. There's no room for a normal car here between Aberdeen Road and Cotham Gardens, in Cotham
But the white van YK54TGV shows that not only can they fit a van into the narrow gap, they don't need to block the dropped kerb.
This is as pedestrian friendly as a buildout -somewhere where the narrowing of the road makes it safer to cross. Yet nobody will recognise this value or the contribution our vans make to the city. Only the RAC are on our side, and even they bill us for it.
