Stopping distances experiment #2: The real world

Last week we discussed a (flawed) stopping distance experiment, where we argued that you cannot stop from 18 mph to 0 in 6.5 metres, no matter what the police claim. That's when you are prepared to halt and planning the exact moment to pull on the levers.

What does it a real emergency halt look like? It looks like this video. Taken about half an hour before the one of a BMW driving down a pavement to get past a traffic queue, for reference.

Here is what it looks like when someone runs out in front of you while you are freewheeling down a hill (Hampton Road, BS6). Speed? Let's assume 18-20 mph. You can hear from the noise of the (hope) hubs that there's no pedalling, so this is just a gentle 5-10 mph curve round the mini-roundabout-of-death, a few spins of a drivetrain in precisely the low gear you are always in when you come up the hill from the Arches, and then coasting, relying on gravity to do the work.

• 0:26 small kid runs out from some cars, looks like 3 parked car spaces away. Assume: 12-16 metres.
• No previous visibility, on account of the cars being bigger than him.
• 0:27 cyclist sees this and shouts "wooah!"
• 0:28 bike catches up with where kid was: he's run on to be with his friends. (Assuming 16 metres, that puts velocity at 29 km/h)
• 0:29 cyclist has now slowed down to the kids running-along-the road pace. Asks child to look. Child doesn't appear to hear them.

The entire incident is over within five seconds. There wasn't enough time to slow down before any collison would have occurred. Shouting and swerving while you slow down is all you have.

The gradient of the hill will have made stopping hard, and this wasn't the "prepared for emergency brake" setup of our previous experiment. This is real world going round the town with your hands on the tops of the levers, with gravity fighting the decelleration. The combination of the time to see and actually slow down puts the total stopping distance at something like 20 metres.

Brakingdistances.com says you for a car @ 30kmh/20mph on a -12% gradient you shoud expect 6m of thinking, 14m of stopping. Which seems consistent.

Now imagine that incident happens once a "Kim Brigg's law" is passed: a pedestrian crosses the road, cyclist > 12m away, travelling at 18-20 mph. Cyclist sees pedestrian, shouts out. Tries to veer to the side, hits the child instead. That would appear to be enough to get the mini roundabout reinstated as Bristol's Public Gallows, and your eviscerated remains left to hang for days as school parents block the roundabout in their Volvo XC90s. "Look at that cyclist, he deserved it. Now, why is this anti-car council stopping me from driving at 30, can't they see I'm late for school?"

Who is to blame here?

It's not the kid's fault he wanted to be with his friends, it's not his fault all the parked cars made him invisible until he ran out.

He didn't look. Maybe he was enthusiastic about wanting to be with his friends. Maybe he listened for a car, but didn't hear any engine, so carried on out. Children are like that: Enthusiasm is not a crime.

What did the cyclist do wrong? Well, that's a question. Is freewheeling down a hill at 18-20 mph speed limit "reckless"? "careless"? Wilful endangerment of themselves and others? The Crown Prosecution would probably argue that, while everyone from the Daily Mail to the BBC would use verbs like "plowed" and "flew" as they covered the trial. In which case: driving round the area at 20 mph, especially in a low-engine-noise vehicle (hybrid, electric) is probably even more wilful.

The one thing you can point to the cyclist and say is: you knew term time had just started, and there were other kids on the pavement. Therefore it was likely there'd be more chidren ahead. So maybe you should have braked all the way down that hill. But: no matter what speed you go down that hill on a bike. if there is a car going the same way, it'll be right behind you or trying to get past.

Which moves to a more controversial question: is 20 mph too high a speed during school start/finish times? Should we drop from 20 mph to 15 in areas near schools? For everyone, drivers and cyclists alike?

Police Tactics

Good to see the Police are employing people to help discourage cycling in Bristol. Especially trying to discourage those travelling with children onboard their bicycle for the school run (as was the case in this video submitted by S via our East Bristol franchise). The TSD Fleet Support vehicle WX11EWN is a van that is registered as an Avon and Somerset Police Force vehicle and even shows up as part of proud collection of vehicles on Flickr if you Google "TSD Fleet Support Flickr".

Visit the videos Youtube page for full info at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwpkhDdHOpY

The school run in St Werburgh's

Over abroad, they are going on about Cargo Bikes that take kids to school.

In Bristol, we have these things called Cars for that in most of the city.

It is only in St Werburgh's that the locals revert to pedestrian version of the cargo bike -the wheelbarrow. The kids seem happy -but where are their helmets?

Observability

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.

Monty week: cyclists endangering our paintwork

Our Monty week has gone on a bit, but that is because there are always shocking things to cover.

Last month, we were celebrating the loss of a bollard finally re-opened Picton Square to important people in their 4x4s, giving you somewhere in this narrow-laned part of the city to park where you could be confident that your mirrors and paintwork would be safe.

But look at how this selfish cyclist endangers the paintwork of the parked 4x4 P334OWP. By trying to scrape between the remaining bollard and the vehicle, her child wagon may brush against the vehicle and so cause damage. And would any cyclist -who is no doubt uninsured- stop and leave their contact details were this to happen? We doubt it!

Note also that we have evidence this helmet-less mother lets her children play in the street! We have informed Bristol Social Services.

Bicycles on Nugent Hill. Again.

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!

Still, if there is one thing that takes the edge of this offence, it's the Copenhagen Cycle Chic people complaining their roads were taken away for car adverts.  That evens things out.

We care, we really do

Some web sites have been a bit critical of us, arguing that we should obscure the number plates of photographs of vehicles in our coverage area, rather what we normally do -type in the registration number without spacing for easier indexing, then tag the entry with the road and district within the city or "abroad" for anywhere out of town.

Sadly for those privacy activists, registration numbers doesn't constitute private personal data, and EU/UK data protection legislation doesn't kick in. And as it's a public street, privacy rules and human rights stuff doesn't either. Were, say the son of Oswald Mosley to pay prostitutes to dress up in army uniforms and beat him while speaking in German on a street in Bristol, he wouldn't be able to argue that it was an invasion of his privacy to put the pics up online. So there you go. You want privacy, do things like that at home, with the shutters closed.

Our biggest issue is not just that cyclists don't have number plates, but that pedestrians don't either. Take this small child enjoying the swings in lower Kingsdown -an area to be covered in the RPZ. There are two cameras covering this play area to make sure that no children misbehave by doing something hazardous like using a swing without a helmet.

Yet how can you enforce non-misbehaving legislation without every child, every adult, having a machine readable registration number? How else can you see if they are paying their fare share of road and council tax, that they don't have a track record of hit-and-walk scrapes against parked cars on the pavement, and other crimes which pedestrians are capable of?

We are with Crap Cycling and Walking in Waltham Forest here: not only should every pedestrian have a registration number (apart from those walking directly between their car and destination), but that the council and schools should run special Walkability courses teaching schoolkids how to safely walk round our city -and that they should only be allowed to walk round if they and their parents have their licenses. And they have third-party insurance for any damage they cause!

Warning: Bicycles are not just for Christmas!

This is the time of year when parents start thinking what Santa is going to bring their little ones; what gifts will lighten up their childrens' eyes. Sometimes this turns to bicycles. We in Bristol Traffic strongly urge parents not to do this!

Yes their eyes will light up with joy at the fun and freedom it delivers, but there is a risk they will not put their toys away when they grow up, and your small child will become yet another tax-dodging, pavement-cycling adult, getting in the way of us car drivers or those pedestrian people who should stay on the pavement, where they belong. Get them something they will really value, like their first Quad Bike. We look forward to seeing everyone out on the railway path on Boxing Day with their childrens' first motor vehicles

The danger-mums of Montpelier

Look at these women. They are pushing their children down the middle of some Montpelier roads. First, Upper Cheltenham Place.

Next: Cobourg Road.

Some readers may complain that although they are walking down the roads, they are not wearing high-viz clothing, and none of the babies in the push chairs have helmets.

But it is worse than that. These mums are actually pushing their children around the city! On foot! They would be much safer driving them in a family-friendly 4x4 vehicle.

You would never see mothers this irresponsible in Clifton.

Watch for children

Here we are again in Alcove Road, , Fishponds, near where one of the recent hit-and-run incidents took place.

Today, we see that the ice cream van G984VFP has a sign on the back, "slow, watch for children"

This is to warn other vehicles about to park on the pavement that children may be running out of their houses to get to the ice cream van, so endangering your wing mirrors and paintwork.

Play parking at the playspace

Contributor "A" sends in these photos with a superb commentary:

At first glance it does look like the driver of the silver Golf T813GLG is parked across the pavement, but on closer inspection it is clear that Playspace has gone the extra mile, not only providing facilities to encourage play and learning for children inside the centre, but also a space outdoors for the parents to gradually learn to park in car parks.

The driver of the Golf is actually making the transition from roadside parking to eventually being able to make the whole car fit in the carpark, hopefully one day without the help of any other grown ups! It's important to remember that this is a gradual process and although the car being on the pavement might cause minor disruption to pedestrians this driver has already made substantial progress over the last few visits as they are clearly already a long way beyond simple road parking. Next visit they are likely to be almost half way within the carpark and maybe with a bit more practise they could be completely within the carpark with only three or four more visits.

In the meantime at least they've had the common sense to put a "small dude on board" t-shirt sign and a "baby on board" tortoise toy sign in the back window to warn pedestrians with pushchairs of the danger they could pose if their pushchair hit the back of the car whilst trying to navigate the pavement and therefore pointing out the advantages for pedestrians and pushchairs to instead make their way around the car using the adjacent road. The driver is after all a considerate parent themselves with the safety concerns of children first and foremost in their minds.

The footwear debate

These two gentlemen are wearing helmets, as they wait at the bottom of Arley Hill for the lights to change. But that is because they have to set an example for their children.

What does interest is something else: the footwear. Has the open-toed sandal season arrived already? Peter W. on on the right has gone for shorts and no-socks, while the unknown cyclist on the left is in long trousers and socks, but he's still gone for the open sandals.

Summer must be approaching

Greenery of the inner city

Contributor "A" sends in this picture of Bright Street, Redfield, which apparently forces the push chair of their little one into the vegetation.

Last month a paper was published claiming that children don't get exposed to nature -inner city children especially. The driver of golf P601LKP must have read this, and decided to make their personal contribution.

Contributor "A" -next time you push your child through the hedge, take a moment to look down a it and see their eyes light up in joy and wonder at the greenery which is in their face, as their little hands reach out to try and grasp those child-friendly branches. And cherish that moment!

Heartwarming

Someone has been teaching their little one how to do the Purdown Camp DH (non-technical, but steep and slippery in the wet, scary in the dark), on one of the sit-and-steer toddler
cars

This is a brave thing for the kid to attempt, and we are impressed. By starting at the age of four, the child will be ready for speed when they get their first mini-quad bike in a couple more years.

This plan has success written all over it

We in Bristol Traffic are pleased be the first blog to recognise the "reality on the ground" and celebrate the granting of planning permission to the Chocolate Factory development, a development which will bring progress to Greenbank, including progress to the green hedgerow along one side of the railway path.

The railwaypath is a family bike path at weekends. But what is interesting for the parent may not be for the child. Look at this photo for example. The parent may be enjoying their workout towing some extra kilos to bath and back, but what of the child. They get bored. The only bit that has some interest is the Bitton Railway, as trains are one product pushed at small children -in the form of Thomas the Tank Engine.

Closer to the city centre, no trains. But now we will have that other centrepiece of child literature to look forward to, Bob the Builder, at work. This will make family bike journeys more fun. Once the multiple new access stairs to the railway path are laid out, we will also have some places between the stairs to let the kids run and play, free from the risk of passing mountain bikers doing a bit of high-speed offroad. Hopefully the residents will contribute to this family feel by providing some picnic benches and play facilities.

The E.P. says, "This plan has success written all over it". We say "mission accomplished!"

More Hill work

This is why fixed speed bikes are still a rarity in the city: its hilly, and after a while you seem to end up with small children attached to bits of your bicycle.

This particular cyclist is doing the school run from Montpelier to Cotham by way of Nugent Hill, and claims to be breaking the proposed 20 mph speed limit in the process.

We will reassure this cyclist that the proposed zones will not affect his journey time. Nugent Hill is not in any proposed 20 mph speed zone. Furthermore, looking at the photograph's metadata in the appropriate image editor shows that this photograph was taken on a Panasonic camera with a 100 ISO "film", F3.3 and a 1/50 shutter speed, yet the image of the bicycle is not blurred. We estimate the uphill speed to be below 12 mph, possibly below 8 mph, and therefore well within range. Please work on you and your children's hill climbing ability before claiming that you will break the speed limits on the way to school.

Think of the children

Its a common sight in the mornings: bored kids in the back of the 4x4, playing on the Nintendo DS while they sit in traffic jams. Some people say that things would be better if the kids got to walk or cycle to school. The people who say that are not small children.

Look at the expression on this girl's face. She's just had to come up Cotham Brow or Nugent Hill, both of which hurt enough as a grown up. As a child, pushing an overweight and underfit parent up, with nothing to look at but their shiny clothes, well, you'd be unhappy too.

Hill Work

For anyone with a small child, be aware that they do help a bit when on a tagalong, so you don't have to get out and push up the hill.

They do, however, lack the thighs needed for decent acceleration across mini-roundabouts or across busy roads. Those are the troublespots.

Pavement Criminals

More pavement criminals, here at the junction of Ashley Road and Cheltenham Road. Two threats to pedestrians blocking the pavement while they wait to cross the road -"safely" they say.

The Evening Post says we must stop such things. If this mother wants to cross the road safely with her child, she should drive. It is the safest way across this busy junction, and she should show everyone how much she cares.

Runout-align-commit

There are some people -Chris Hutt among them- who believe that the fact that the Squarepeg "cycle houses" will have steps up or down to 16 of the 20 houses they will build 3 m from the railway path means that they aren't cycle houses at all. That in fact anyone trying to get a bike in or out will ignore the steps and their wheel groove, and instead loop round to the garage. And that they are pretending to be cycle houses to justify their acquisition of a bit of parkland and the defacto enclosure of some more.


But like Rowland Dye, here showing the distance between the path and embankment is just over a bike length, that belief that stairs have no role to play in urban cycling is either one of ignorance or a consequence of using drop bar bikes, bikes whose Centre of Gravity on a flight of steps is pretty hairy.



Here's a photo of my son, learning to do stairs at the age of four. I may not be able to teach him how to do wheelies or hard-core BMX work, but doing steps is easy: runout-align-commit

1. Runout: check there is a clear, flat stretch with no approaching cars or other traffic.
2. Align: get on the bike, get it stable and don't be mid-turn when you hit the steps.
3. Commit. Go for it. Don't touch the brakes, keep your weight back. Only slow down on the runout.

That's all it takes. So cycle houses with steps on them could work. The key is getting the design right. Firstly, you need to be aligned and stable before the steps. The houses will need a little porch, and a front door that automatically closes and locks as you ride straight out. Secondly, you need a clear bit of path to come out on.

And that worries me: the path is busy, busy, busy in the morning, and having steps that runout at right angles to the main traffic flow is suicidal. The steps need to be angled so that they feed into the bike lane gently, giving you a clear runout that won't create a collision with someone doing race training from Bath or a group of trials bike riders heading to Castle Park.

If they don't do that, if they don't make the steps fun and safe for even a four year old to ride out on, well, then it wouldn't really be a cycle house and giving up some of the parkland to build them would make no sense whatsoever.