Tuesday 15 December 2009

Survey Work

More people surveying Cheltenham Road, here on a weekday evening

You know they are on official business as (a) they are parked on the pavement, where they don't interfere with passing traffic and (b) the hi-viz clothing.

There's an interesting question there: you can see from this photo how reflective clothing makes car drivers and passengers more visible, even inside the vehicle. Should we therefore demand that not only are hi-viz tops mandatory on cyclists and pedestrians, should we demand it in car drivers and passengers too?

3 comments:

Bristol Dave said...

You know they are on official business as (a) they are parked on a wide pavement where they don't interfere with passing traffic or passing pedestrians on the pavement since there is a 20ft gap to the left of the car and (b) the hi-viz clothing.

Fixed that for you. In fact, I'm struggling to see why anybody even bothered stopping on a cold dark night and took a photo of it.

Bristol Traffic said...

1. It could be the cyclist is actually waiting at the lights, worrying that the position of the car is ideal to hide the sight of any "ghost riders" coming up cheltenham road on red without any illumination other than the way they sometimes eclipse kebab shops' frontages.

2. It's a very inefficient way of getting a small amount of survey data. Read Instrumenting the city to see how to do it properly.

3. This is the third time we've come over surveys along here, would be interesting to know what's being planned.

alice said...

@ Dave "(a) they are parked on a wide pavement where they don't interfere with passing traffic or passing pedestrians on the pavement since there is a 20ft gap to the left of the car"

You missed out the best bit though. They're pushing the boundaries, breaking down taboos. Hopefully setting trends. Marketing folks will be able to tell you that it takes a few times for someone to hear a brand name or see a particular style before they accept it and buy into it. Hopefully if these people can keep up the pavement parking in this area then it won't be long before others follow suit and do the same. By being the first to park on that expansive are of pavement they're showing people it's ok. They're showing what's possible. These people are leading the way. We need to applaud their pioneering attitude and hope that before long we'll see regular use of this area for parking of maybe more than just one or two vehicles.

Who knows before long we could see parking all the way down Stokes Croft, maybe even making use of both the pavement and the vastly under-used and under-appreciated bike lanes that flank them. There's nothing like taking a lead from officials. After all, if it's ok for them then it's ok for all of us yes?