Some revolutionaries exploited some known PHP hack and defaced the travelwest web site.
Cue cause for coverage in the guardian, Muslim Hackers take down bus schedule web site, including describing how people resorted to facebook to ask the Arab Security Team what the schedule for the #8 bus is.
Well, it's good for Bristol to get some coverage in a paper written in London but sold nationally. Sadly, the paper covered the story with a photo of a stock bus stop in the rural road middle of nowhere. This is surprising, as we'd expected at least one of the paper's unpaid interns to have studied somewhere in the city.
For future reference the #8/9 bus meanders round the northwest bristol urban areas, with Clifton is furthest point in its orbit from its terminus, Bristol Templemeads.
Here, then, is an authentic Bristol #8 bus. Sitting at templemeads with the lights out and no cue whatsoever as to when the bus engine will be spun up and passengers able to get to their destination.
This, and non-determism of Bristol traffic flows, mean that if you live in 30 minutes walk of BTM, then, even if you are on the #8/#9 bus line, you are better off walking, except when one or more of the following conditions are met: its wet, you have luggage, you have a child with you. Even there, given child fares are non-zero in Bristol, walking with a child is still appealing.
As for Clifton being a rural idyll of empty roads: no. The residents may imagine it is a village, but only by the same criteria that stokes croft could consider itself a village: it was one a couple of centuries ago. Avonmouth village has far more villageness.
Dear Guardian: when you next want a photo of a Bristol bus stop -please get in touch.
As everyone knows -tax dodging cyclists love to cycle the wrong way up one way streets -streets put in by an anti-motorist council to make cycling more "convenient" than driving.
Once these tax-dodgers get used to contraflowing, they end up using those routes even when they drive a car -or in this case, a coach -as seen here in Fishponds.
Before anyone says "how do we know this coach driver is a cyclist?" -the answer is obvious. Only cyclists go the wrong way down one-way streets, so this driver is a cyclist.
One of our regular commentors -and the sole "outed" barge owner in our audience- YZ09AFD- is heard in this video abusing a bus driver down at the centre.
The harsh truth is that bit of the Centre is designed for buses. Not bicycles, or that one-way-at-a-time light at the end would have a bicycle bypass, or at least respond to waiting bicycles, bicycles whose owners then recklessly cycle through red lights.
It's not designed for pedestrians either, otherwise the ped crossing at the other end would actually do something useful.
It is for buses only, it radiates that fact, and the way they treat "DaveW" or anyone else selfish enough to cycle down it is entirely justified. We just wish there were more minicab firms in the city to keep these underpeople in their place.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Anything negative we have ever said about firstbus, including the apparent inability of FirstBus to join up their bus departures with the hourly arrival of trains from London are now denied. We have never said these things.
Credit to Stockwell Pete, who is also being sponsored by FirstBus: best bus service between the city centre and Stockwell. Apparently they are even going up to Henbury again.
There's a lot of complaint from the bicycle-troublemakers, the vocal ones, about vehicles stopping in ASLs. We think that it's exaggerated. Here is our proof.
[update]: It's apparently a Wessex Connect Bus. We praise them for their consideration.
It's a video from (an expendable) cyclist. As we've stated before, we don't video our own driving in case it is used in evidence against us. Even the soundtrack of us trying to touch-type facebook updates on the phone could cause legal issues. Hence we give these tax dodgers cameras "as gifts" and collect the output. Today we see the output from a shinier camera, which is helmet mounted for a bit more stability.
This video was shot going down Shaldon Road, meeting the lights at Muller road. As you can see the bus has its wheels behind the ASL, but the front of the vehicle is in the ASL. This is for everyone's own good -nobody should go into this ASL.
0:13. The bus gets a green light to turn left, taking up most of the lane as it swings round. A cyclist may have survived if far enough to the right, but the turning car would have dealt with that.
0:22 The cyclist gets a green light and starts to head through while a car coming from the M32 runs the recently-red at speed.
If the cyclist had been using the ASL for its planned purpose "getting out early", they'd have been hit by that car. The FirstBus WessexConnect vehicle's positioning not only protected the cyclists from it's own left turn, it saved ithem from other road vehicles.
We think this is one of the cycle facilities which even the militant cyclists would be campaigning to remove.
We feel betrayed. Why? Cllr Gollop was the leading quote for the Bristol Bikelash. How can he rightfully take our side by denouncing the painting over of some parking spaces with bike lanes, then turn around and say "it's OK for people to cycle here". It's just hypocrisy. We know he's going to drive there, obviously, but will he stand up and say the truth -that he and his party are the only people prepared to stand up against cycling and public transport in this city, because they are the only form of transport for poor people, and we are not poor. Well, not poor yet, though his colleagues in Westminster have plans for that. But don't worry: the unemployed don't commute.
Contributor "TH" sends their second photo of a car/bus conflict. The car loses. Remember that.
This is St James Barton Roundabout, judging by the Primark in the distance. Apparently the bus was on the way to LHR, hopefully they didn't miss their flight, and DV51YYM didn't sustain too much damage.
Speaking of buses, here's a video from London of someone on a bicycle making a mistake.
This video is doing the rounds of the international cycling sites, and should be shown to all schoolkids as a "what not to do" video. What they did wrong was not "try and slip between the gap of the car turning right and the bus that was pulling out having just got a green light". No, their mistake was earlier. It was "not slowing down for the junction". Approaching a set of lights, there are three states it can be in: red, green or changing.
Red: cross traffic with RoW at speed. If lucky, survive. Drivers get pissed off. Green: vehicles pulling out hit you, especially large red ones. Drivers get pissed off. Changing: either of the above.
There was no good outcome here, once the idiot chose to hit the junction at speed. The only unpredictable outcome was that someone else was videoing it. Speaking of which, isn't it a pity the cameraman didn't pull over and talk to the loser, because if you are going to be filmed doing something that near-suicidal, your face should be immortalised round the world.
Remember, both car drivers and cyclists: larger craft have right of way.
---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: murphy_le_chat Date: Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 12:47 PM Subject: [Bristolcyclingcampaign] Bus news
I've just returned from visiting a friend in the BRI who's just had an operation to put a 10in plate in his left shin, which was badly broken when a bus drove at him last Tuesday, outside the new Magistrates Courts.
I have chosen those words carefully. He is an experienced cyclist, well used to the difficulties of cycling in and around Bristol for many years. His route to work takes him from Bond Street, across the 'bear pit' roundabout, and across towards the BRI.
Last Tuesday, a bus on his nearside rear, drove very close and just touched him as he was riding round the roundabout. Shortly after, he stopped in front of the bus and 'had words' with the driver. He then continued on his way to work, thinking the incident was over, and had reached the Magistrates Court when the bus pulled alongside and deliberately turned sharp left, into him. His bike is written off. He has a broken leg, broken left wrist (which also has a plate) and a broken right thumb.
The entire incident was captured on the Courts external CCTV, and there were several witnesses. The case is now in the hands of the CID, and I understand the driver will be charged with causing Grievous Bodily Harm, and using the Bus as (an instrument? weapon..I forget the term). Clearly the case is under investigation so I don't know the implications of giving any more detail. The bus wasn't operated by First Bus. Strangely enough, news of this incident doesn't seem to have reached the Evening Post. Or maybe I missed it.
The zebra crossing wars on whiteladies road are hotting up. The bus companies had put together a proposal to make it harder to walk over the road -replacing some zebra crossings with pelican crossings, and here, by Oakfield Road, moving the crossing away from "the line of desire" and zig-zagging it so as to stop anyone with bicycle from using them. By discouraging walking and cycling, those people who don't have cars now have no reason not to use FirstBus, so will be a revenue stream.
Sadly, the troublemakers -and we know who they are- pushed back, and this crossing will remain as is. What can we do? Well, FirstBus knows what to do, it's pretend the crossing isn't there. The more people realise that buses will go straight through it, the less tempted they will be to use the routes.
Congratulations, then to WX06OMO, for showing strength of will and not even bothering to slow down for the person standing by their bicycle waiting to cross this junction.
Well, we can't see any of the cyclists mourning less firstbus buses driving into ASLs on red lights, such as here on Stokes Croft, even if the bus S721AFB here is a 'green' chip-fat bus. Presumably it pulls in at Slix or Rita's to fill up.
What about the pedestrians, will they suffer?
Judging by the way this FirstBus bus WX59BZF drove over the ASL and into the pedestrian crossing area on a red light -and not a recent one, as traffic from Ashley Road had the green light- they'll be safer too.
Assuming the cut-back buses are the low-profit bits of the schedule, we don't imagine FirstGroup will be in a rush to replace the drivers -they like their margins.
To: office@eagle-coaches.co.uk Attn: driver safety section. Eagle Coaches, Bristol
Hello,
We we have been forwarded a video and an email to pass on to you, Eagle Coaches. Although Bristol Traffic is primarily a web site which which tries to copy the Daily Mail and be chirpy and upbeat about everything which happens to cyclists daft enough to cycle around the city, we don't believe that it is currently legal to attempt to run them or their children off the road. We are also concerned that such incidents will encourage more council/police action against motorists, such as banning cars and coaches from Guthrie Road completely. This is a shame as the road in front of the school will be a useful rat-run once Bridge Valley Road is open again.
The point the letter author makes is an interesting one: we may appear before your own site in web searches. In a world with ubiquitous cameras and google indexing popular sites, you have to remind your drivers that it is not only the police they have to worry about, but the cyclists sticking their videos up online, so damaging your brand image. The cyclists could even contact your insurers via the askmid site and making the underwriters fully aware of the risks which they are undertaking, so increasing your insurance premium.
Yours,
The Bristol Traffic Team
----------------
Hello,
Can you request that your coach drivers give cyclists, especially those with small children, more than one or two centimetres clearance when passing.
While I was dropping my son off near Bristol Zoo, we both nearly got squashed between some parked cars and the Y-reg coach of yours driven by someone in a moustache on Guthrie Road at 10:10 on Monday July 5, 2010. As he approached me from the zoo direction and I approached from Pembroke Road, he seemed in a bit of a hurry and reluctant to stop: I had to stop far enough out in the road opposite a space that it was clearly impossible for him to get past me on this one lane road -but even then he was unwilling to pull over to actually make it safe for me to get past. After thanking him for stopping -and receiving a frown in return- I set off reluctantly down the narrow gap. At which point the driver set off again -with about two centimetres of clearance between my handlebars and his vehicle. I had to thump the bus repeatedly before he pulled slightly to one side.
I must apologise in for any damage I may have done to your vehicle by banging against it, however I find that I feel no guilt. If your coach is going to drive so close to me that I have to hit it repeatedly with my fist for it to not hit me, then it was clearly too close. If you feel the need to claim damages off me I shall report your driver to the police for dangerous driving.
I have a legitimate right to use a road -one which was recently traffic calmed to make it safer for school children to walk on-, yet your driver seemed both reluctant to slow down for the traffic calming (I'd check the state of the underside) and reluctant to acknowledge the existence of anyone on a bicycle or their right to use the road. Sadly for your driver, we not only have a right to be there, we are moving to using cameras to film our daily commutes, and forward any near-death incidents to the police.
On that topic I must apologise for not having a film of the incident, I do not have a head camera. I have a phone camera and am sending this letter and my post-incident recording to the Bristol Traffic web site, http://bristolcars.blogspot.com/ for them to process. As a result of their high popularity, searches for "Eagle Coaches" and "Eagle Coaches Bristol" for the next few months will probably bring up the page covering this near collision ahead of your own corporate web site.
One of the reasons we are in favour of the Zetland road anti-bicycle facility is that it will discourage bicycles from using the A38 to and from town.
Yes, there may be a bike lane and bus lane most of whole way, but that just creates bus/bike conflict, as well as bike/parked car conflict.
Here on Stokes Croft, for example, this Wessex Connect Bus T875HGT has been forced to drive into the bike ASL and park here while the light is red. If bikes were encouraged to cycle here the inter-vehicle conflict could not only be dangerous, it could impact bus schedules.
FirstBus would like to make clear that this footage of a bus failing to observe rights of way rules is not one of theirs.
All their buses respect zebra crossings as well as Advanced Stop Lanes for bicycles.Furthermore, anyone who states otherwise will receive an injunction from some well-known libel lawyers to prevent them spreading such lies.
Normally when this site covers school coaches, we feel sorry for them. It's not their fault, for example, that people have parked vehicles like in the coaches-only bit of Cotham Road, and so they are forced to double park to let schoolkids on and off safely.
No, it is the councils fault for failing to provide designated parent parking zone outside the school across the road -more on that another day, with the "Mum Rage" video.
But today, a bit of a focus on one vehicle, particularly this Turner Bus we see some distance ahead of our parent-and-child bicycle
But which we soon catch up with, giving us the photo that includes the registration number and the telephone number to call to raise a bug report against their understanding of the "When it is safe to overtake" rules.
In particular, if you are a bus only doing 12 mph up a hill, and there is a bicycle doing 10mph up a hill, then you should not attempt to pass the aforementioned bicycle while there is an oncoming car. fortunately, the oncoming car and the bus both agreed to slow down, and the bus could then wait to pass the bicycle safely, but for a moment it felt that there was a bus that wished to occupy the space currently used by a bike.
This is very inconvenient to the parent, as one does not want to teach the child about swearing, and yet with actions like this, well, they get to learn.
It is time to call Turners on 955 9086 -providers of school buses to council and independent schools in the city, and ask them exactly WTF the bus 3138DP was doing at 08:22 this morning.
Updated: phoned up, reported, they will tell the driver off, the office apologised. Probably on the Colston's school run, apparently. This is a reminder why a camera is so handy on your bike, keep it on a handlebar bag. Get one that powers up fast, and which lets you take pics one handed while your son goes "daddy, what did those words you said mean?"
Update 2: forgot to put the reg# of the landrover in the posting. M525YPX. With the hi-viz gear in the back, they are probably part of the sanska "Caring constructors" team rebuilding the school here. More on them another day.
This vehicle, half on the pavement, half on a double yellow line, is waiting The vehicle in front is parking in front of a taxi-only space for a single taxi; where it is waiting it would block any turning vehicles, such as, say, a bus. Why would one expect a bus to be turning here? For the same reason the taxis and the cars are here: this is the bus station.
If you are doing dropoff or pickup by car, these two spots are the only places you can do it. Of course they are going to wait here. It's inconvenient, but the only alternative would be a short stay dropoff zone, like round the corner at the BRI, and as everyone who goes past that knows, it's a medium-stay-sit-in-the-car zone which wouldn't be any good for trying to drop someone off at the bus station.
This leaves three access options to the long-haul bus network
FirstBus buses which may or may not work
Taxis
Parking for six bicycles
Space for two cars to park on the pavement, so stopping all buses
Some subversives has proposed an integrated transport hub at templemeads, where it would be possible to get from a bus to a train without relying on any FirstBus services. This is wrong, as FirstBus are an invaluable aspect of our city and can be relied on, just as TfL can be trusted in London.
Nice little Youtube channel of someone who cycles in to Edinburgh with a camera on their head -sometimes they film the drive for comparison. The footage is all a bit dark -if you are wondering why there are so many cars driving around in darkness, that's scottish winters for you; the films are probably taken at 08:45 in December with daylight some months off.
Best video is this one
It is either an argument in favour of helmets, or in praise of maintaining some distance between you and the vehicle in front, especially if the vehicle in front is bus. Remember: whoever crashes into the back of someone else is viewed as liable.
It's interesting that there so many buses in these videos: a reminder that there are some cities in the country the same size as Bristol which have a functional bus service. They're getting a tram line too.
Here is a bus unloading at Cotham Grammar; the school kids are getting in what is currently the back entrance. though that may change soon if new proposals succeed. The bus is parked in the "school no parking" area, blocking visibility of and on the narrowed crossing area to the right of the photograph.
This is clearly dangerous, which is why in 2004 an area further down Cotham Road was dedicated to bus parking. Here it is, with a number of vehicles.
Which, given they are in the bus only parking area, must be buses. The black Astra bus YA57RCZ, a blue polo four-seater bus BD53PNV, and a red peugeout bus WN07KKH.
Alongside this bus-van, and three others further down the hill.
It is a shame that there are so many buses parked in this area that other buses have to unload in a dangerous area. Perhaps the 1 hour limit on how long a bus can park in this stretch should be enforced.
There's a lot of press going around about how when CERN brings up the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) this week, the planet will vanish into a newly-created black hole. As someone who has worked in Beam Control at CERN in the very distant past, and whose code may be used in some of the post-processing phases it is worth reassuring the readers that this will not happen. The LHC has been built to collide Hadrons, large particles that have been spun up to very high speeds/masses, so that when they hit the other particles head on there is a lot of energy in the collision, energy which may, sometimes, result in the appearance of previous hypothesised but never seen particles.
This is what the fear is about -that humanity will create new particles that will destroy us. It will not happen. The duration of these particles will be incredibly small, otherwise there would be many leftover particles from the time of the big bang. Furthermore, any new ones created from cosmic-ray collisions with the planet in the distant past would have left some traces. Therefore it is believed that the to-be-created particles will only exist within one of the detectors (ATLAS being the primary UK experiment) long enough to be picked up, and even its evaporation measurable.
Yes, CERN may finally create evidence that the hypothesised "FirstBus No.77 Bus" does actually exist putting to rest forever the Copenhagen Interpretation of this long standing physics problem, namely that cities are only for bicycles.
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