Don't expect any sympathy from the council

Maudlin Street, July 2017. In the background you can see some old bits of the BRI being knocked down and replaced with premium student accommodation.

In the foreground, you can see a car diagonally across a (contraflow) bike lane.

Tax-dodgers often complain that enforcement of the cycle lanes in the city is as observed as enforcement of anticorruption rules in the Trump cabinet; our dataset does imply this.

This is possibly the only vehicle we have ever seen in a bike lane to have actually earned a parking ticket. Indeed, there wasn't even an index category in the blog, "parking-ticket", until this moment.

What has brought radical change in enforcement about? Clearly, a full diagonal parking with your front sticking out in the car-lane-for-real-people qualifies for a yellow label on your windscreen. That's despite the fact that it's got a disabled parking permit and its only inconveniencing cyclists.

Except it's not parked is it? There's some disabled parking bays behind our photographer, and this car is backed up against the kerb exactly as you'd expect a car to end up if it slowly rolled down the hill and came to a halt without getting enough momentum to get up on the kerb and/or cause damage. Lucky for the owners there. Because instead of repairs they'll only have that parking ticket to argue over with the council.

You can't ticket me: I have diplomatic immunity

Chris Chalkley, President for Life of the PRSC, almost gets a ticket for being double-yellow line parked on Jamaica Street.

First he tries the "I have diplomatic immunity gambit", which fails. Time for a plan B.

"Ticket that van first", as he points to the other van, while he hurriedly drives off with his to park round the corner.

Bus Lane Persecution

The AA -always a bit late in their press releases- is now complaining about CCTV cameras being used for ticketing cars parked illegally. We think they are missing the point. The issue is not how people get tickets for parking illegally, it is the fact that there is a notion of "illegal parking".

Take this car WN51VPV in the bus lane of Whiteladies road one weekday morning. It is not on the pavement, in the way of pedestrians. And if it was -that would still be acceptable, as it would not be blocking passing traffic.

It is not blocking passing car traffic: there is a lane for them. Nor is it blocking bus traffic, as you can see this bus is sliding past the car quite easily. Even the tax dodging cyclists you can see in the background will slide past this car without getting in the way of any tax payer.

To ticket this car for blocking a bus-lane on one of the city's primary inbound routes during the rush hour on a working weekday is nothing but profit seeking by an anti-car council!

Breaking news: anti-car crackdown in Bristol

Over in Westminster, the council are advocating that their enforcement officers have the right to issue spot fines for cyclists breaking the highway code. Although we think this isn't enough: bicycles should be banned for adults; using them should merit spot fines. we have been giving this idea some consideration.

In the end, we're against it. Why? The Highway Code. In particular, the entire section on road junctions.

Rule 170: crossing pedestrians have right of way over turning vehicles. See that? the highway code claims that pedestrians have right of way over cars. Anyone who tried to walk across a road in Bristol believing that would not only die immediately, they would slow down somebody important who had just run them over.

Rule 172: You must give way to traffic if there is a give-way sign at the junction. All traffic, including bicycles. Bollocks.

Rule 174: Do not enter box junctions marked with yellow hashes unless you can exit. Bollocks.

Rule 178. Do not enter ASL boxes on red; allow cyclists time to clear when the lights change. Bollocks to that too.

Rule 182. Do not cut on in cyclists. Missing the point. We do that to make cycling more miserable.

Rule 183: When turning left "give way to any vehicles using a bus lane, cycle lane or tramway from either direction". This is some kind of joke, right?

You see our concern. If people get out there and start enforcing what are technically the legal traffic laws in this country, not the de-facto ones, then the resulting crack down on the things we need to do to get round our city would make driving round Bristol worse than it is today. That would be unacceptable. The satisfaction of seeing a bicycle fined for cycling through a pedestrian crossing would be offset by the tickets we would get ourselves.

The worst one is rule 170, the one that implies that pedestrians crossing the road at any junction have the right of way over turning vehicles. That is simply untrue. It is a good thing it is never mentioned to pedestrians, as even more people would die.

In the US, the country where, gloriously, jaywalking is a crime, they actually enforce that give way to pedestrians rule. Could you imagine if they started doing that in Britain? We would be stuffed.

No, no need to have the council enforce rules against bicycles. We drivers will make them suffer, and there is no point giving anyone in the council ideas, like letting them read the details of highway code.

On that topic, we have some sad news of the new Cotham Martyrs. Here is the summit of Cotham Hill, at the far end of where a woman cyclist ended up under a lorry last week. In the background, a traffic jam of cars on the school run. That church was set up to remember the Maryan Martyrs; the people burned alive for their religious beliefs at this very spot in the time of Queen Mary. This hill, no doubt to be full of whining tax-dodgers on their Bastard Hills of North Bristol ride, represents a key conflict point in the city over historical timescales, where people suffer due to state oppression of fundamental freedoms. Yesterday: religion. Today: parking.

Cars have always parked here; when the council made the road one-way at the top and added a build-out, this added room for another row of cars on the pavement. We celebrated this only yesterday! Yet today, what do we see? One of the same cars, RF04ZFW parked precisely where it has been free to park in the past. Only today: a ticket! A ticket! Yet there is enough room for a pedestrian to get past on the build-out, so why the fuss?

When you look from the side, you can see precisely how uncalled for it is. You cannot even accuse this car of parking on the pavement by double yellow lines, because where the pavement drops down to make it easier for parents to get their push chair onto the bicycle contraflow and so past the cars -there isn't any double yellow lines! Therefore parking on this buildout by the dropped kerb should not be illegal! We hope this car driver appeals.

This is why we are against Bristol copying the Westminster Council "give our enforcement officers the right to fine bicycles" proposal: we think enforcement officers themselves are a sign of an anti-car city.

We are also concerned that this anti-car theme appears to be getting worse. The question is, how to measure it? We have a plan.

We can assess the official anti-car resentment in the city by reporting "illegally" parked cars to the BPS control room, and seeing if they respond, and how long it takes. 

This does not mean that we do not think that cars should not be free to park where they like, and that the whole idea of yellow lines were invented to bring in revenues to councils. Only that we can measure whether or not the council feels such actions are an issue by measuring their response time to calls. Which we can only do by reporting the vehicles themselves, by dialling the control 0117 903 8070 and reporting what may be perceived as "incidents" but which are in fact attempts by us Bristolians to stand up to an oppressive regime. The response time to the calls will be our way of formally assessing the oppressiveness of the regime. If we, say, report a row of lorries parked on the Stokes Croft bike lane, as we know there will be right now, without even having to bother to go over there, and then later, we do drop by and the vehicles have tickets: Bristol is getting more anti car. Yet if we report them and later on: no tickets, Bristol is resisting attempts by the cyclists to take over the city.

How you can help

For this to work, we need people all over the city reporting cars parked on pavements by double yellow lines, or on double yellow lines, such as those under bike lanes. Remember, we aren't being anti-car here, we want the council to ignore the calls and let Bristol's car and van drivers carry on as we have always done -but we want to make sure. We need to be sure that there isn't secretly a bit of the council cracking down on the cars and vans that keep the city moving. And the only way we can do that is by making the calls, and seeing what happens.

January, that is when the experiment begins. This month is the "before"; the baseline dataset. Nobody should report vehicles parked outside Hampton House, on Cotham Hill, on the bike lanes of Stokes Croft or Cheltenham Road. We must start by assessing what happens without interference. Look at your streets, take photographs, note if any tickets are issued.

[This experiment is supported by the NERC and ESRC funding bodies.] 

Parking enforcement changes at schools

This event made the E.P. last week, although this photo dates from the week before: it's a sign up outside a school warning that the parking rules will be changed according to plans CAE/MLS/P/586, listing half the primary schools in the city

What's interesting is that this plan is not up online. An email to the planning people came up negative. A quick email to the planning people got bounced over to traffic management, and since then, silence. Perhaps they too don't believe in this email thing.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: customerservices ptsd
Date: Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 9:18 AM
Subject: Re: School stopping order proposal CAE/MLS/P/586


Hello
I have forwarded your email to Traffic Management as I believe they arrange stopping up orders. You can contact them on 0117 9036822 email traffic.management
regards
Claire
Customer Services

>>> 27/04/2009 18:58 >>>
Hello,

I'm trying to find out about the School stopping order proposal
CAE/MLS/P/586, whose details I have seen pinned up outside a school. I
can't seem to find it under the planning portal Does it exist
somewhere else on the web site?

Since then, the string "CAE/MLS/P/586" does turn up one interesting article, namely a discussion in the Bemmy Forum on the topic. The schools will be going from a voluntary yellow zig zag to something enforceable.

Judging by the discussion, everyone in Bemmy thinks it is good, though it may inconvenience people driving to George Ferguson's Theatre down there. It will be interesting to see what the reaction elsewhere is.

Incidentally, there is also the problem that "theoretically enforceable" does not imply "enforced". Most parents quite happily park on double yellows near schools today because they know that unless they see a parking services team standing there, all is well. If this enforced school parking plan coincides with rollout of CCTV enforcement from passing vehicles, it would become possible for BPS to do a drive-by enforcement of these zones at dropoff and pickup time of every primary school once or twice a fortnight. Which would be frequent enough for the markings to be considered real.

The new Cause

There is a shadow over [London]Derry

Despite so much progress towards peace, a republican spinoff group that refuses to accept the peace settlement, Bogside Republican Action Group, has come out and threatened the British oppressors. That is, they have declared that TV license and parking officials are "legitimate targets".

This is such wonderful progress. Really.

Whereas before, the "oppressors" came in form of army helicopters, armoured personnel carriers and armed foot patrols by the UK Land Forces, and the issue under dispute was whether the 1921 partition of Ireland was accepted as legitimate, now the outstanding issue is whether parking on double yellow lines is a crime.

The best thing about this is that while the previous issue divided the country/occupied six counties fairly irreconcilably, both sides of the conflict now have a common enemy. Whereas before the Nationalists could not get many Unionists to embrace their viewpoint, parking is as much an issue in the British quarters as the Irish ones

Hopefully this adoption of a common enemy will create unity within the country. Perhaps even the classic songs of either side could be updated appropriately. The Orange Order's song, "The sash my father wore" could be updated to become "The 4x4 my dad drove me to school in"


Even that republican anthem of internment, "The men behind the wire", could have its lyrics updated.

Old: "Armoured cars and tanks and guns, came to take away our sons. But every man must stand behind, the men behind the wire."

New: "Derry city council parking enforcement officers came to ticket our sons for illegal parking. But every man must stand behind, the vehicles parked on the double yellow lines"

It is only through such modernisation of both group's narratives that peace and reconciliation can be achieved.

Apparently the local police are looking at the threat, and even Sinn Fein have condemned it -presumably because it is their council's revenue which is now threatened. Here on the mainland the concern must be how much ex-PIRA armaments the Bogside Republican Action Group has access to, and whether they have linked up with mainland groups with similar aims, such as Captain Gatso or the Association of British Drivers. Here on the mainland we've been isolated from the Troubles for nearly a decade, and it would be good if it stayed that way.

The Montpelier Multimodal Interchange at work

Even when you go past in the evening, the new Montpelier Multimodal Interchange (formally: the Montpelier bike crossing) is functional, here providing somewhere for two transit vans to park: one -S217UVW in the MMI, another on the double yellow lines behind it.

This vehicle-on-bike-path situation gives us an opportunity to explore police and parking enforcement measures, as a response to the PACT-initiated crack-down on bikes last December. If the police really do want to enforce laws to enhance cyclist safety, then stopping cars and vans from blocking bike lanes would seem an obvious first step.


Henceforth, parking in this bike lane has to stop. anyone encountering a vehicle parked here is authorized to call the Parking Services control room at 0117 903 8070 and say "there is car in our bike path between Picton Street and Richmond Road". The same goes for anyone blocking access to it on either road. It is now off-limits, at least for a week or so, until we get bored of calling it in. All participants welcome -add a comment to this entry of the call: date/time and we will see what kind of response it generates, or whether a crack down on pavement cyclists is considered a more useful activity by the authorities.

(Incidentally, the cyclist above is allowed to ride where they are, though they are not wearing a helmet. This puts them at risk if someone in a large transit van were to reverse without looking or open a door suddenly. What needless risk taking!)

Towing on Whiteladies

The driver of the car M21PKE will be returning to their vehicle this weekday morning (08:52), to find they have no vehicle.

Parking services actually runs at a loss for the city, and the actual overhead of towing a car not only costs a lot, it appears to bring all motor traffic to a halt, as the lorry blocks the other lane heading in to down, forcing them to swerve in to the oncoming lanes.

The bikes and pedestrians are unhindered. The economics of towing (max: one vehicle per hour) show why clamping is something to consider. Yes, it leaves the bus lane blocked, but it warns everyone off, and is much easier to go round clamping a set of cars than towing them.

The Kingsdown Parking problem

Mazda WP56DYY must be very glad that Bristol Parking Services never visit somerset street. For if they did, the fact that it is on the pavement over double yellow lines and a keep clear sign might be an issue.

Might. Because alternatively, the Bristol Parking Services staff might just sit there in their van Y184NMW with the engine on, looking at it.

To be fair, it was a cold morning. Sitting in a van being kept warm by engine heat was appealing. Its just, well, doesn't Bristol Parking Service have a mission statement or something? Some kind of goal? And if not, well, what exactly does it do?

Victimisation

There's a story in the local newspaper this week that someone in Bristol Parking Services was sacked for harassing a car, for ticketing it when legally parked. There are few details on this topic, as the other staff refer you the press office for more information.

With no information on that event, we can only talk about what we see, and here, on a university survey, there is clear evidence the BPS are persecuting a car. Its a weekday morning and this car is about to towed away. The tow truck has pulled up on St Michael's Hill.

Look, its only a single yellow line. There are some rules in small print -no loading 0800-0900, but this is 09:01, so the more relaxed "no parking" rules apply. Yet you can park everywhere else round here.

The tow truck driver clamps every wheel, then lifts the car onto its flatbed, nobody knows where they go after.

Why is this car being persecuted? What has it done to offend Bristol Parking Services? It is a vendetta!

Change has come

What a profound week. The first multi-racial US president. A US president who actually appears intelligent and willing to effect the transformations this planet needs to sustain itself beyond the next four years. Everyone we know in the US is celebrating, not least because it represents a triumph of internet based organisation over fox news.



Here in Bristol, something profound has also happened. We have received photographic evidence that Bristol Parking Services does issue tickets to illegally parked vehicles.

Here the range rover Y4MFC is actually being ticketed for parking on yellow lines and having one wheel slightly on the pavement -in Hampton Park, Cotham.

This event has taken years of dreaming, many people never thought they would live to see the day, but yes: a new dawn has arrived. A different world is possible. Believe!

Almost on the corner

In theory, you aren't meant to park on a corner. In practise, if you can get your car almost near a corner, then it's parked, especially off Alma Road in Clifton.

Here the Peugeot Y86JHU shows that a couple of feet from a corner works ok. It's "corner-ish"


Just after putting the camera away, a white astra with Bristol Parking Services drove by. I did indicate to the passenger that there was an illegally parked vehicle, to see what they would do, but she just mouthed "sorry" and put it away.

One experiment we have been debating is to get a white car, put some "Bristol Parking Services" stickers on the side and see if we park unscathed anywhere in the city. But having seen the car this morning, we have a new theory: someone else is running the same experiment. Just think. If you could park where you want just by having BPS sprayed on your car, you'd do it.

Perhaps that woman in the car wasn't mouthing "sorry" through the window, she was saying "Oh no, it's one of those idiots who think we can ticket cars again". Someone on a bike should follow the next of these cars they meet, just to see whether there really are parking services people in them

Disabled parking issues

There is news that the government wants to create a central database of all owners of disabled parking tickets, to stop theft and forgery of the bits of blue paper that allow you to park where you want. This seems an expensive exercise in creating yet another central database; yet another place to lose personal data. For it to catch forgeries and theft, every time a parking or police officer saw a car with a disabled permit, they would have to check up on the database. This would build an implicit record of the location of every disabled vehicle in the country, which could be very interesting from a datamining perspective, with only a few civil liberties folk to whine about it. Do those people not realise that the War on Terror requires a few personal freedoms to be put aside?

In Bristol, we are not convinced that the central database makes economic sense. By allowing everyone to park where they want, even half-in a disabled bay, our city has eliminated the need to steal or forge a disabled parking sticker. Thus we get to save lots of money -on the database, and the enforcement. Isn't that a much better idea?

Incidentally, if the government does want to go the database route, we propose RFID-tagged number plates that can be automatically scanned in driveby audits. They would be harder to forge and it would be easier and cheaper to build up a complete database on the movement of people, one the council could get at. As it is today, the ANPR-based national car movement database is not available to the people who be able to use it to find out how people actually drive round the city: the traffic planners.

The tickets are out!

Possible proof that Parking Services do exist: a line of cars with yellow tickets on them.

What have such cars as P959APM and YD03ZJL done?


The same as the next car, V158ETH: parked in a buses-only parking area on Cotham Road

This is clearly unwarranted discrimination against commuters. Everyone knows that anyone can park here, it's a parking area close to the BRI and regularly used by medium-stay visitors to the area. Yes, buses do come sometimes, but it is a wide enough road that the bus can park without blocking through traffic.

Look, plenty of room. There was no need to ticket these people. They should complain. They could say the bus was parked over the buses-only sign on the ground when they parked

Ticketing in Bristol

The elusive "Tomato" also sends in some pics of two cars in Montpelier, being ticked for parking on the pavement -despite the fact that there are no double yellow lines there!

The cars YP05PPV and M481SCJ appear to have been ticketed by the police, so these tickets do not provide evidence that Bristol Parking Services exist.

Tomato says "Amazingly there wasn't even a double yellow line. Further up St Andrews road there was another - the silver one, apparently for the same reason. This is the only place in Montpelier, indeed possibly the whole of Bristol, that I have heard of cars being unfairly penalised in this way, and the last time I know of in St Andrews Road was a couple of years ago when the indignant car owner wrote into Venue letters page with accompanying photos indignantly pointing out how easily a car could still get past."

Yes, the police do appear to be unfairly picking on some cars. We also have some pics of the police ticketing cars in Kingsdown last week, so maybe there is a new police officer walking round the city, still being surprised by how cars park.

Bristol Parking Services' parking

Having discovered where Bristol Parking Services park, the next issue becomes how.

Diagonally across three of the bays and a "do not park here" bit of the Bristol Parking Services area was some kind of towing van.

The kind of van you use to tow vehicles parked across three bays and a "do not park here" bit of a junction. They are lucky there were no Bristol Parking Services staff around to enforce the regulations.

There was, however, a BPS staff member to enquire about why someone was taking photographs -whoever they were they didn't try the "you can't take photos gambit". They did explain that there was actually a good reason for these vans to be here. And he was probably right: there are so many people parked illegally round the city there was nowhere else for Bristol Parking Services to park their towing van.

Parking Services at Work

The Bristol Blogger's story on Bristol Parking Services was a shock. There really was a Bristol Parking Services. Terry had sent a photo of a BPS van, but we suspected it was just something someone painted on a van so that that they could park wherever they wanted.

If Bristol Parking Services existed, parking like this might be discouraged:


Since everyone does park this way, one can infer that there is no BPS.

But lo and behold, what should there be on Trenchard Street but a line of vehicles with Bristol Parking Services printed on them.

All with a fine view of the VW Golf VA03LCL and the Ford Focus W672XCP from the first picture

So: Bristol Parking Service vans exist. What we don't have is any evidence that their staff exists or enforce parking. More on this topic later.

Parking Services at work

It's a tough job for Bristol Council Parking Services. A losing battle. Resented by the people parking illegally for their enforcement of the rules, bemoaned by the cyclists for their unwillingness to enforce rules. Look at this as an example. A van on double yellow lines and a bike lane in Midland Road, St Philips. Should it be ticketed for half-blocking a bike lane?

What about having only two thirds of the vehicle length on the lines? Again, tough call.

This is a tough problem. These are the decisions that Bristol's Parking Services have to consider, day after day. Should they punish someone for parking illegally during an attempt to get their work done, or should they just say, "no, we understand what its like. Just park where you want, we won't ticket you"

Certainly for this vehicle, WDO4 RXP, propery of Bristol Parking Services, whoever was driving it on at 14:02 on 27 August 2008 managed to dodge the bullet -no ticket on their windscreen!