Yellow Cab Taxis: transport for South Bristol

Over the bicycle blogs, there's a lot of anti-taxi rhetoric. Well, that probably goes back centuries, since the first important people -our ancestors- rode horses and so differentiated themselves from you, the little people.

But if you spend time talking to anyone who worked as a taxi driver, you realise life is hard. One of their big fears is will the passengers do a runner, and if they do, will they just run or try and rob you in the process. Nobody likes picking up passengers to some parts of the city at night. It's the Bristol equivalent of London's "I aint goin souf of the river".

Except for one company. Yellow Cab of Bedminster aren't scared of South Bristol; they will take you wherever they want to go.

Even better they will pick you up from where you want to be picked up from. And on a Saturday, that means Bedminster.

Here DN05KFD is awaiting any passengers on the corner of Boot Lane and East Street.

For those people who can't cross the Boot Lane, their colleague in BD53MYX will pick you up.

Now, some people worry who is not capable of crossing the road, but Boot Lane is the home to the local RNIB branch, whose issues with Pavement Cycling have been covered by both us and the Evening Post before.

Down Boot Lane itself, KR08YJK not only helps keep the pavements clear of bicycles, they ensure that those people whose eyesight problems prevent them from driving their own cars, will be able to enjoy the convenience of having their own vehicle on the pavement just where they need it.

(One of the taxi people was a bit upset about the cars being photographed, but to respect their privacy we didn't include photos of them. We would encourage others to keep an eye on this area to see that Yellow Cabs are providing taxis for shoppers and visitors to the RNIB offices on a regular basis, so they get more used to such activities).

The Polis come to Bemmy

We welcome a new contributor, "B", who snapped them at the Asda end of Bedminster, and says "Probably parked there because of a terrorist shoplifter scare..."

That's certainly conceivable. We suspect the Basics Campaigners, who are #1 of about 47,100 results in Google's index of the phrase "campaign against sainsbury's". However, we don't think they plan to escalate their protest to Asda, architectural merits notwithstanding.

One thing all readers should remember is that the police can park where they want when on call, and they aren't people to upset. It is their right to park here. What is more frustrating to us is that we can't copy them. And why's that? Because it is illegal to impersonate a police officer, and that includes putting "POLICE" and "HEDDLU" on your white van and then expecting to park wherever you need to unload in Bristol, the South West, and Wales. Some people notice the ladder on top of the van and get suspicious, call the police, and then its serious problems. This is utterly unfair.

However, we have some news, something we will follow up next week: something you can legally put on your van so you can park on zig-zags by zebra and pedestrian crossings. Wait and see.

Bus Passengers cost shops money

We are shocked to see that bus passengers are damaging the economy in Bedminster.

This is the sign on the bus shelter

Passenger Notice

Please queue to the left

of the shelter when

waiting for buses

Please do not obstruct

the frontages of local

businesses when

waiting for buses

This selfish behaviour of bus passengers is destroying the local economy

Not only do they not shop in the Sextons' car audio showroom or motaman car parts, they block sight of Star News and Booze from passing cars.

East Street: a secret short cut

There is a secret back-route through Bedminster that only a few cars know about it. Here we are going to blow the secret wide-open and share a way to skip three traffic lights and about ten minutes on a weekday morning.

It's called the East Street pedestrian zone, here demonstrated by -----. It may say buses only, but as we've seen before, that's a hint. Any law that isn't enforced doesn't exist, and as driving through here in a car is never punished, you may as well. So who wastes time going round the back streets of Bedminster, when they could punch the core at speed? Losers.

Bedminster "bus" lane

Joe Evans sends in some more snippets of the Bedminster "bus" lane. It isn't really a bus lane

Because if it was


It would be full of buses

Instead of cars


Which is the case here