Moments of Madness

Last month we covered how the bus driver accused of deliberately running over a cyclist outside the magistrates court was in court over the incident.

The news is now out that he's been sentenced to 17 months in jail after pleading guilty to dangerous driving and GBH, which, given the video, was hard to defeat with the "I didn't see him" defence.

The video is pretty awful for anyone to watch: if you want to know what it looks like when a bus sideswipes someone on a bicycle -when the bus isn't even going that fast.


The evening post says that the bus driver, Gavin Hill, has been disqualified from driving for 30 months, and will have to take an extended driving test afterwards. Apparently the action was "a moment of madness".

Well, we hope that Phil isn't suffering long-term consequences, and that the outcome does provide some reassurance that society frowns on such explicit attempts to cause death and injury.

Now, let us turn to today's other "moment of madness", this time by one David Lowrey, of Kingsway, St George, where the Evening Post says:   A VIOLENT motorist beat up a cyclist by the side of the road before getting someone to lie for him as he tried to escape conviction..

When we heard the "someone to lie for him" phrase we checked to see if David Lowrey was on the coalition cabinet, but no, he was someone who started a fight with someone on a bicycle who had the audacity to make some kind of gesture to the car as the car encroached into the cycle lane.

Again, "a moment of madness", this time with four months jail; no mention of driving penalty or what penalty he or the "independent witness" get for trying to pervert the course of justice (*)

If these court cases weren't in the papers on the same day, the "moment of madness" defence might sound somewhat realistic. As it is, it comes out looking a contrived.

For that reason, we had a look around to see where else the "moment of madness" defence had cropped up.

• Ron Davies, welsh secretary, robbed at knifepoint by a some people he went down to Clapham Common  with"a moment of madness"
• Sir John Guielgud, set up by the police who actually had undercover police trying to entrap men seeking a bit of discreet consensual sex, again "a moment of madness".
• Hugh Grant getting caught paying a prostitute for a bit of entertainment in a public lavatory while on a business trip without his wife.

There we have it then, two separate scenarios where defence lawyers recommend the "moment of madness" defence

1. You've rammed or assaulted someone on a bicycle and want to make it clear that normally you are a safe and docile driver and suddenly "a moment of madness" came over you. You didn't mean to cause physical injury and hope to be let off lightly.
2. You got caught by the police engaged in some outdoor sex act which the legal system at that time and place considered illegal. You want to imply that the fact the police caught you with your trousers down was not because you do it very often but because you "had a moment of madness" and you were very unlucky. You also don't want your political/acting/religious career ruined, so you have to pretend it was somehow an accident.

There you have it then, two situations where the "moment of madness" defence crops up. Can we note, then, that for the second of these sets of legal cases, nobody gets hurt. In fact, most of the participants in the situations seemed, at least to an extent, engaged in consensual acts. Whereas nobody volunteers to be run over by a bus at the bearpit, or head-butted by a complete stranger.

Either way, it's become a bit of a cliche. Please, defence lawyers, come up with some new phrase.

(*) On the topic of independent witnesses, can we remind everyone that not only do ex-spouses turn on you, but if you are having someone pretend to be a complete stranger so as to devalue the line up evidence, remember that as covered in Ugander et al., The Anatomy of the Facebook Social Graph, it's fairly easy to determine if the pairwise distance between you and the independent witness is only one or two hops, or the you are both parts of the same clique of acquaintances. Less formally: you can't say "I have never met this person" if you keep identifying each other as friends in facebook photos.

Update: for anyone in the mainstream media who is not actually appearing in the Leveson inquiry or in a 1:1 meeting with Don Murdoch, trying to contact us -please read more than one article on this site, especially the media corner, before emailing us. You will discover that you wouldn't consider us a serious and unbiased news outlet. Which, coincidentally, is exactly how we view the television and printed news outlets. 

Bus News update : driver in court, Wed Jan 4

Back in April, we posted about a bus that apparently was deliberately driven into a cyclist.

The court case against the driver is scheduled for Wed 4th January, at Bristol Crown Court No 7, at 11:00 or later -more details welcome. We'd also hope the cyclist involved has recovered.

Unlike the Evening Post, we do cover such things, and would welcome a full summary to bristol.traffic at gmail dot com, where it will make its way online.

On a more positive note, nobody on a bicycle or on foot was killed while walking or cycling round Bristol in 2011, which is an improvement on previous years, and makes London's terrible statistics even more significant, from the sixteen cyclists to the  many pedestrians, including one who was apparently killed by an HGV driver convicted of killing a cyclist only a year earlier.

Bristol has -despite some serious incidents- a better year. We also wish everyone that 2012 continues to not only have the same -zero- pedestrian and cyclist deaths, but that the number of injured drops too. If there is a difference between London and Bristol, it is that the police here are more supportive.

Happy 2012 from the Bristol Traffic team. 

Cyclists must know their place

Clearly motorists are more important and must take priority on the road, regardless of the right of way of inferior pedestrians or cyclists. It is concerning to us then that so many of these "alternative" travel modes seem to think that they can be considered as a legitimate form of transport.

Consider this next case. Imagine you are almost 30 seconds away from your destination and you want to turn right into Stanton road from PenPark road, Southmead after a long morning doing something important. A cyclist decides to turn in front of you, thinking that they have right of way as another car might have in his same situation. It will not do at all and is likely to add several seconds to your journey.

It is important to make a point about this impudence! P198HWK takes such action and attempts to force cyclist onto the pavement where he would normally belong. Disappearing around the corner there is an inspired one finger salute just in case there was any doubt by the cyclist that he had done something wrong.





The trouble is that we cannot condone this sort of action. Imagine the engine and tyre wear that vehicles would suffer from this revving and squealing and if this was the norm then it will only add to the large expense that us poor motorists already suffer. Let's hope at least that this one cyclist has learned his lesson.

Dads, you can be Redland Mums too

A special callout to CV53EJX, here going down Cotham Brow. Moving too fast for a good photo taken one handed from a moving vehicle, low light conditions..

For some reason the school run went well on the way in. Yes, it was by bike, but since the DVLA sent a note asking for the license back in a pre-paid envelope, driving is not currently an option (*). But when you consider yourself a driver, not a cycling or walking under-person, you retain some of the old habits. You know, you occupy a lane, when an oncoming vehicle stops for you, you wave with your hand, they wave back. Sometimes you pull over for them, they wave at you. A friendly morning. Sprog delivered within a few minutes of the specified delivery time in a state of calmness. Perhaps the week off has left everyone in a good mood, no more Redland Mum "Death before a late dropoff" driving.

Then this, on the way home. Being still in motor-driver mode, after negotiating the buses parked in the downhill lane of Cotham Road, on account of the school parents parked in the coaches-keep-clear-zone, I slowed down to let a car coming off Hartfield Drive pull out. Mistake. Bicycles are not allowed to stop to let cars out, as it gave this CV53EJX a chance to overtake the bike and cut up the car pulling out.

Obviously, I caught up with the driver at the zebra crossing, where those bastard students hold up everyone. "I stopped to let a car out", I said. The driver look over with so much anger, his whole face torn up in rage and frustration "Oh Shut Up", I think mouthed, as he sprinted off to get caught behind the next car. 

Getting kids to school is pretty stressful. There's a hour or so of a parental attempt to impose schedule on small kids that would rather play with lego or read or watch Horrid Henry. But once you are out the door, there is no way to regain lost time. It's the rule of project management: time lost upfront cannot be regained. Trying to drive aggressively round Bristol on the school run doesn't do anything for your journey time, because that is a function of the number of the junctions (a constant) and the traffic load, while variable, is mostly a function of time, t, and whether it is a schoolday or not, also a function of (t). The equation becomes something like

T(journey) = congestion(t)*schoolday_factor(t)*junctions.

There is nothing you can do about this, you may as well mellow out unless you are out the door so early that t is earlier in the morning, and hence congestion lower. But not, clearly, this Redland Dad, who is suffering too stressful a life. We hope that it does not impact on their family life, that his kids and partner do not suffer. If they do, the news outlets inform us that there is a National Bullying Helpline which provides support, though you can't trust them to keep the calls confidential, not if the story is interesting enough.

(*) Details not to be discussed. All those people who pine for "real" police rather than speed cameras should note that they've never experienced being pulled over by armed traffic police on US Interstate 5 between Seattle and Tacoma. Cameras aren't as scary.

Driver reporting

Someone asks on the Bristol Cycling Campaign mailing list, "can I report bad drivers"?

it was a maroon hyundai accent reg# T352VOA. I was cycling along Downend Road from Ashley Down Road at a fair clip when I heard a car coming up fast behind me. it's pretty tight there with cars parked on both sides. I turned around and the car was right by my back wheel. i shouted back my annoyance and rode defensively, not wanting to be in the path of an opening door with this aggressive driver right behind me. A couple of cars came towards us which allowed me to progress while she was held up. but as soon as they were clear she zoomed right up and didn't stop - basically pushed herself through forcing me towards the parked cars. All of which happened within 100 metres of the traffic lights. of course i was fuming and told her so, through her wound up window before she drove off.

RAC car check confirms there is a Hyndai of that number, ASKMID confirms it is insured. So if they had knocked you off, you may have got some money. This web site isn't really the place to complain about specific drivers, for which BetterDriving is a recommended location -Though we do like to know where in the city trouble lies. And on that note, we can re-assure you that the entertainment you get on your morning commute isn't likely to change in the near future, because Ashley Down Road remains a 30mph road on the 20mph-zone map; as will Muller Road: if a 20 mph zone ever went as far as Horfield, well, Downend road would run the risk of being one of those busy-back-roads-leave-it-fast routes, even though its part of the quiet road route from Filton, being between Dovercourt road and the one-way roads parallel to Gloucester Road).

A lot of those back roads have two roles. A quiet option for cyclist commuters who can't handle the A38 any more, and a fast option for car drivers in a hurry who can't handle the jams on the A38. That creates, well, tension. There's nothing like ambling down North road or suffering up Belmont Road to hear the sound of an over-revved clio 1.2 coming up fast behind you. What to do? Well, St Andrew's won't be 20mph either, so make the best of the bus lane on the A38.

The other email, "I was cycling on Cotham Brow when some car turned right in front of me, even though I had my lights on and shouted at them. Got a photo of the Peugeot N314MAF with my phone"


We like photos, and while we have low standards, this one is fairly close to not making the cut. Were you by any chance drinking before hand? And what is that strange light in the sky? All we can do is confirm this car exists, and show that clearly their actions didn't get them very far. We do hope that you did not shout anything that would give cyclists a bad name, and allow the E.P. to start complaining about cyclists swearing at passing traffic.

These alleged incidents show a problem with focusing on 20 mph back roads. They don't go anywhere. And the through roads, the 30mph roads, are things that you either have to cross -somehow- or actually use to get to places you need to. Keeping all the through roads 30 mph contains an implicit assumption that cyclists and pedestrians don't actually get out of their own street, or when they do, it's by car.

The other issue with a 30 mph road is that it makes people believe that the road is its fast. It creates unrealistic expectations. More honest would be for every road in the city to have a speed limit of 15 mph for cars, 18 mph for bicycles on the flat dropping to 8 mph for them uphill, and 47 mph for taxis.