"RP" -our Gloucester Road correspondent, shows us some secret parking places:
FV55 PYO has been parking on the footpath round the back of the shops next to the disused toilets under the arches on the Gloucester road on a daily basis for well over a year. To be precise, the practice started at the same time that "Do 'Lil Coffee" opened next just next to the disused toilets next to the arches on the Gloucester Road. Not that anything should be read into this of course.
Now this is a great example of resourcefulness. The footpath here is wide and although bollards suggest that cars are not welcome on this pedestrian cut through onto Cromwell road the driver is often able
to leave plenty of room for both the car and those on foot. On other occasions, FV55PYO is joined by a second car (peculiarly this seems to coincide with times when Do 'Lil Coffee is doing a lot of business --
Saturday mornings for example).
Then it becomes a little more awkward for pedestrians who have to decide whether to risk damaging parked cars as they squeeze pushchairs, bikes and shopping past the cars or, probably more easily, abandon the footpath and take to the road instead. Anyway, we digress.
To reward this feat of ingenuity and long-standing service to resourceful parking, Bristol City Council now routinely fix yellow stickers to the windscreen FV55PYO. Here is one example from a little while ago. This recognition of success has obviously not gone unnoticed as are now many other luxury cars who feel they don't want to be missed out.
01:32 P232YEU. Seen them.
03:46 Eagle Coaches coach waiting in the bus lane. Seen them.
04:45 Family walking across the road. Seen them too.
When even independent videos include content that we already have on our web site, we can conclude that our attempts to build a mass-surveillance infrastructure out of google's datacentre facilities and community contributions are successful. At least for Montpelier, Stokes Croft, Cheltenham Road and bits nearby.
Does this mean it is time to retire: Our work is done? Maybe. But first, time to visit some other parts of the city.
We feel really sorry for the Bristol Evening Post. Most of the real journalists have moved on, leaving only a few people who are actually valued for their knowledge of the area and their willingness to type what senior management want them to write (Ian Onion), and, to replace the others, some unpaid interns trying to learn how to write HTML content to put local journalism as an item on their resume.
In the latter category, then, can we welcome Laura Local, who is now our favourite third-tier reporter for the Redland People subsidiary web site of the Evening Post. We think "redland people" is a bit overambitious, as it implies all the residents check it every morning saying "what's happened in our part of the city?", but that doesn't happen. Nothing much happens there except when some drunk students put some traffic cones on some cars, or the helicopter over stokes croft keeps people awake. Even then, reading about in the Redland People site isn't the way most people discuss some items. In fact, given their readership count, we believe the site would be called "Redland Eight People"; the eight being friends and family of the authors.
Laura, we are pleased to see, is trying hard to get the audience into double digits by printing an anti-cyclist rant. We do that ourselves, which is why our daily audience is in the high double digits, and we can see why a commercial site that tries to make money through advertising revenue would aspire to be as successful. Hence this lovely article, Redland cyclists among the worst in the Bristol? Here's the opening paragraph
I was turning right out of North Road by the Arches when a cyclist, who wasn't wearing a helmet I hasten to add, whizzed by in the middle of the road heading the direction I wanted to go - towards Gloucester Road. I pulled out behind him, as I would have done had he been a car and he stopped in front of me all of a sudden and started mouthing off before jumping the red light.
Maybe I was a little too close to him when I pulled out but I felt any criticism was rich coming from a guy who was bombing down the centre of the road without a helmet and straight through a red light!
We aren't going to defend the tax-dodger, but we will provide some constructive feedback to the author
It's not actually a legal requirement to wear a helmet. The only time you should criticise them for not wearing a helmet is when someone gets run over by an HGV driver on the phone, then you can say in the daily mail comments section "were they wearing a helmet" and so absolve the whole of society for their death. We do.
It's not illegal to cycle down the middle of a lane. Yes, it annoys us as it stops us driving above 25 mph, but for the troublemakers, it gives them more options avoiding being hit by redland residents who are too lazy to drive to the gloucester road shops, and who open their doors without looking or pull out without indicating.
If you were the first vehicle to pull out, and you were parked in the ASL under the arch itself, the cyclist may have crossed the traffic light while it was still green, then if you pulled out aggressively he may have had some reason to express concern.
Don't ever admit in print something like "Maybe I was a little too close to him when I pulled out." It removes your ability to take the moral high ground. We never discuss our own driving actions for this reason, or make videos from our van -the police might want them.
Gloucester Road isn't Redland. It's Bishopston, on one side, St Andrews on the other. When when it becomes Cheltenham Road it's called "the arches" until you end up on the disputed Cotham/Montpelier/Stokes Croft region where the new Tesco is. Not Redland. If you have to drive outside your own reporting area just to get content to rant about, well, that may show some weaknesses in the "Redland cyclists amongst the worst in Bristol" story. We recommend spending some time in Cotham Hill, which, while again not quite Redland, is full of pedestrians, cyclists, school-run parents and us vans, so creating a lovely mix for new articles, such as "Redland Van drivers amongst the worst in Bristol?", "Redland students amongst the worst pedestrians in Bristol", and of course "Redland school-run parents amongst the worst in Bristol". Together this will keep your article quota fulfilled for a month with only one morning's worth of research. Or you could walk along Chandos Road and have a geographically correct region for the "Redland parkers amongst the worst in Bristol" article.
Do try and back up your articles with photos other than faded bike path signs that may convince everyone, motorist and cyclists alike, that Bristol's cycling facilities are dire.
If you do want to get a video of someone cycling through the red lights on that stretch of Gloucester Road, stand there with a camera on a weekday evening and wait for one lights cycle: it's not hard.
Anyway, Laura -welcome to the tier-3 anti cycling rant pages of Bristol. Those of us already in the business welcome new competitors, as it keeps us on our toes. Just try a bit harder and we might even feel slightly threatened.
A lot of our fellow warrior-motorists complain that bus lanes have taken up away a lot of the road capacity of our cities. Far from it!
They have only taken away road capacity from those drivers too timid to use the bus lanes!
Look how here on a weekday evening on Cheltenham Road, the showcase bus lane provides a fast alternative to a congested private vehicle lane -for anyone bold enough to get in and use it!
If there's only one complaint, the moment the bus lane ends, someone in a 4X4 has half parked up on the pavement, so forcing us to swerve back in to the main traffic route.
This is insensitive parking that fails to take into account the needs of fellow motorists.
We like that bit of the A38 from the Arches to Stokes Croft: our bit of the city. Wide roads, bus lanes to drive and park in, and shops for our lifestyle. As well as the minicabs, there's the car stereo place before Kwik-fit.
Looks pretty, doesn't it? But what's that in the window?
A sign
CYCLISTS
SPECIAL
OFFER
(From Monday-Friday)
"HOP OFF & CUT"
£7.50
Apparently cyclists can bring their bicycles into the hairdressers and get a haircut while their bike is kept safely out of the rain, secure from theft or damage.
Can you do the same with a car? No. You can't even park in the bus lane for half an hour for a haircut, not with the CCTV enforcement that's now underway.
The sign in the hairdressers is is a terrible sign. What it really says "we are at risk of losing Cheltenham Road".
At the end of Cromwell Road, just under the arches, there's a lovely wide bit of pavement by the double yellow lines.
It's a safe place to park even a nice car, such as the BMW LX06UXU thought the presence of bike racks on the roof worry us. Are these perhaps cyclists?
Whatever, we like to show that nobody is inconvenienced and unable to get past. Here we can see a pedestrian can easily get by with only one wheel of their child's pushchair in the road.
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!
Look at this. A row of bicycles down by the Arches on a weekday evening, all taking up space without paying any road tax.
Interestingly, that car parked in the bus lane, LR57XYK is a Toyota Prius of which some models are also exempt from road tax.
Some cycling subversives may be wondering why is it that we think it wrong for bicycles and pedestrians to use our streets without being taxed, while cars like this hybrid get away with it?
We ask these idiots to think harder. If they think it acceptable for them to use a bus lane, ASLs and bike lanes -even though they don't pay road tax, then all other road-tax-exempt vehicles should be allowed into those same parts of the road. They could be the non-taxpayers corner of the city.
This prius is not simply parked in the bus lane because the driver needed to pop into the shops, it is parked in there because as a hybrid it should be allowed to use the lane however it sees fit.
By being a hybrid it means that amount of fuel and it consumed to get to and park in this bus lane is much less than the diesel buses that have to expend energy getting around the car, or indeed vehicles like the van DK57ECV also trying to drive down the bus lane and also having to swerve around it.
Here on Stokes Croft one weekday morning, we see the L-plated car from "Drive" showing everyone how to park to get into the post office. Veer across the road -so avoiding a dangerous road crossing yourself, and then use the double yellow lines under the bike lane.
We hope a student is picking up these valuable lessons, and it is not just the driver in WM09FJE doing some errands.
Elsewhere, on Kingsley Road -parallel to Gloucester Road, behind the arches- we see a P-plated car showing it has understood the lessons
Yes, they have parked so as to not interfere with passing vehicles on this one-way road.
Yet poor R852UWO has somehow got a ticket? Why? Who is persecuting innocent drivers merely for choosing safe and convenient parking? When will this anti-car program of an anti-car council ever stop?
Our strategic partners, the Association of British Drivers, have a special dislike of Bus Lanes. They make some valid points. One of their criticisms, for example, is that they make buses more popular, hence more people get on them, hence the bus gets slower. That is an important issue, for which all existing bus passengers must thank the ABD for looking after their needs by fighting bus lanes.
Another criticism is that they slow down traffic by creating congestion, forcing two lanes of traffic into one. That's a bit simplistic, as Amdahl's Law implies that the bottleneck is always the single lane stretches: you have to make everything dual carriageway. Still, the idea merits investigation, on the showcase A38 route, down at the Arches.
Here we can see that they are in fact of so little value, even the buses do not use them.
The problem is that solid lane markings mean that car drivers cannot use them. The double yellow lines mean that law-abiding car drivers cannot park in them.
This means that only drivers like that of L794FWO who refuse to recognise double yellow lines park in them. which renders it useless to buses and taxis, and is of no value to anyone wishing to ignore the restrictions and drive down it. Yet it is still of no value for anyone wishing to park legally.
Clearly the solution to this is to downgrade it from a bus lane to a car parking lane, so that anyone can park there. That way, it will have some value at least. Right now, with even the buses blocked out of it, it is a waste of valuable road space.
We are very grateful for the ABD drawing our attention to this problem, and encourage every grateful bus user to contribute to this forward-thinking organisation by purchasing one of their recommended driving CDs.
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