Cummings: "the car told me to do it"

The government is scrabbling for excuses for why Cummings drove 260 miles from London to Durham in March, did a 60 mile round trip while there, and then another 260 miles south in April.

The main claim "parental instinct out of concern for a child", coupled with a revision of the lockdown guidelines, aren't proving sufficient -especially given the day trip to somewhere 30 miles away.

Now they look for more excuses: the autistic child, the dying uncle.

But there are two more they need to consider and wheel out

1. his parent's dog was dying and they needed to let their son see it one last time
2. his car told him to do it

Now, no doubt some readers will be reading excuse #2 and thinking "WTF?". If you are one of those people: know that you are one of the little people.

Cummings is important. We know that not through is arrogant and self-entitled disdain for the lockdown laws –but because he drives an Important Car. We saw it on the telly when he was doorstepped. How do we know it's important? Look at the BBC video.

• It's an SUV in a London street. Hence: he probably has money and is therefore important. However, it could of course be an old one, in which case he is unimportant. how to tell?
•  He presses a button on the tailgate of his SUV. This is a modern important car with a motor to lower it. That, along with power steering, has been essential for mass-market adoption of SUVs people -especially women- without the reach to the top of the tailgate then pull it down can now close it from their keyfob or by tapping the tailgate button.

Yes, Cummings pretends to be closing the tailgate by hand, but he has pressed the button before doing that. He's realised that to avoid being seen as one of the elite, he needs to look like he doesn't really drive an important car. But we Important People see his trick.

And what do important cars care about? Electrical power. Electrical power for that tailgate, the satnav, the hands free bluetooth phone link, the camera and computer for lane tracking, the adaptive cruise control, the power windows, the power sunroof, the 8 speaker audio system, the rain-sensing mirrors, the runflat tyre pressure monitoring, the side radar collision avoidance, the ultrasonic parking sensors, and the always-on headlights. Oh, and starting the engine -especially in an environmentally smug car which turns it of when you are stationary, waiting for the parking sensors to tell the engine control unit that the car in front has set off, and it'll be time to move two metres forward.

Even when parked up it's busy -its alarm powered up to make sure unimportant people keep out of it.

Which means, they have expensive batteries which need to be kept charged.

Based on our extended experience, an Important Car for Important People driven 250 miles/month, with 3/4 of that on motorways, is happy. But during lockdown, it has been complaining about neglect


Battery Discharged it says -Start Engine.
And on the LCD of the "things to look at when bored" feature, it expands this



Battery Charge Very Low.
Recharge by Driving or using external charger
Functions requiring power supply, such as communication, entertainment are
+some warning which continues if you scroll down on the "controls to play with when bored" dial

See that? "Start Engine". "Recharge by driving". Also, see how the warnings were all about what matters in an important car 'communication, entertainment and air condition', not things that important people don't care about or understand like 'engine won't start'.

What was he to do?
Well, he could have done what we did. bought a £50 quid charger, stuck it under the bonnet and ran a power cable over to it. That would not only have charged his Important Car for Important People, it would make passers by think he had an electric car. Because nowadays, running an extension from your front garden to your car is the new status symbol. Especially if you stick an "e" on the back of your car where it tells people what specific variant of the expensive-car category it is.


Why not do that? Maybe he realised that he was about to come down with Covid-19 and because it takes 24h to buy a battery on line and have it delivered, by the time it arrived he would be self isolating and unable to go outside and wire up his Important car for Important People.

Driving to Durham with his entire family. was the only thing he could do. Well OK, he could have got in alone gone up to the M25 and done a lap of it, but really, that's not only boring, there's roadworks between the M3 and gatwick turnoff, so it'd take longer that you'd expect. And without his family to keep him company, nothing to do but make hands-free calls to #10 telling Boris what to think. And that must get really tiring, day in, day out -especially now that Boris is @ work rather than on holiday somewhere.

Nope, Durham it had to be.

So while other people are denouncing him for being an arrogant self entitled elite wanker -which he is, admittedly, we don't support those condemnations for illegally driving across the country to bring Covid-19 to Durham just because he didn't want to have to entertain a four year old all on his own.

Nope, for us: the car is at fault .

At least he didn't come to Bristol.

BMW: please don't drive like utter wankers

As the arrogant self entitled owners of an Important Car for Important People, we recently received a communication from the manufacturer. Here it is, unabridged

---

Dear BMW Owner

Due to the large number of people who have been killed recently by drivers —especially pedestrians and cyclists in hit-and-run incidents— the transport minister Jesse Norman has been in touch with us. He would like to pass on a message

"It’s great that driving has become so popular in recent years but we need to make sure that our road safety rules keep pace with this change.

"We have some laws that ensure that drivers who kill others are rarely punished, but, given recent cases, it is only right for us to look at whether dangerous drivers should face the consequences."

We at BMW would like to remind our drivers that all of us are representatives of the BMW family; whenever one of us drives like an utter wanker, we are all tarred in the brush of shame. We must strive to ensure that the badge of utter-wanker-driver continues to be held by Audi drivers alone.

Please, study the highway code, and remember that you should be prepared to stop at "Give Way" signs rather than slow down slightly. In particular, when joining a roundabout you are expected to yield to all users, including cyclists. The Highway code also covers other signs worth learning, what the orange light in traffic lightss, and the rules of zebra crossings.

The next time your BMW is due in for a scheduled service, please get in touch to attend one of our free "safe BMW driving" seminars, whose topics include:

1. Speed limits: what, why and how.
2. Indicators: the politer way to communicate.
3. Overtaking: when you shouldn't.

We also offer to recalibrate the speed warning to 90 mph —just ask the service team to lower it.


Finally, when on a motorway, please leave at least two metres difference between you and vehicle in front —even when an owner of Ford Fiesta has mistakenly pulled into the fast lane while only doing 75 mph. It's safer for everyone.

---

There you have it. We'll try and drive better than others, and even explore the do-not-disturb option or our phones. We should be able to keep it up for a few weeks to see whether you can get used to it. Motorway speeds are probably going to be the tough one, given that even Corsa drivers will end up passing us —that's not what we paid for.

PS: Why are we getting email from Jaguar Land Rover Australia saying "Congratulations on the recent purchase of your Evoque, and welcome to Land Rover."? Some mistake surely.

Metrobus on the railwaypath? Again?

the West of England partnership, henceforth known as the Bringers of Woe, have a consultation on a transport vision for the future.

Key points

1. More people are going to live in Bristol
2. More people are going to live Weston Super Mare, despite evidence to the contrary.
3. More people are going to live in middle of nowhere dormitory towns near bristol, and hold unrealistic expectations about being able to commute into the city 

So, they have come up with a vision. That's a sort of a value between "no idea whatsoever" and "have a clue". Interesting to read, and so derive goals not just of Bristol, but the Outer Wilderness

North Somerset doesn't want anyone cycling to Bristol. We knew that, but their map doesn't even show the existing Festival Way as "a strategic cycling route", let alone propose it actually continue the extra 1-2 miles to reach as Nailsea. Instead they want an uprated A38 and a few tens of millions making the M5 more dangerous by turning the hard shoulder off at peak hours. Most interestingly the A38 to go to the M5 in a new junction. It's not clear what that will do, but apparently "This corridor experiences severe congestion ". If that statements is true, then the adverts for the Junction 21 Enterprise Zone you see while wasting hours at passport checks at BRS are lies. The advert? "15 minutes to Bristol". The reality? Not a chance. Yet here we are, with North Somerset saying "good transport links" on the J21 site, yet "experiences severe congestion" in another. One of those two statements is false —and if its the advertising, someone may want to complain.

Suggest: N Somerset consider alternative transport options to sitting in a traffic jam on the M5, and be open about its issues in the J21 site.

South Bristol doesn't get a callout of its own, just coverage in Bath to Bristol corridor. There's a small problem here in that the key public transport route between the cities is the train —and central government have removed electrifying this stretch of line from their "vision". That is, not even on some random future deadline which they can postpone, it's an outright "we don't plan to do this". Which means that the one change which would have really improved carrying capacity on the line, reduced transit times and pollution from trains in the cities? Gone.



Saltford is promised a bypass.


They also discuss LRT -Tram- along "the A4 Corridor". That's an interesting term there, as it doesn't mean "Along the A4", it just means "along the Avon Valley". There are two other options there (ignoring tarmacing the river). There's the train line, and then there's the Bitton-Bath stretch of the Railway Path, the stretch which has the steam trainists practising their hobby on a weekend. Could this be time to reinstate steam trains between Bristol and Bath? Brunel would be proud —they didn't have electricity in his day, after all.

Suggest: residents of South Bristol may have transport issues of relevance too. Anyone who cycles in Bristol might want to look more closely at the LRT routing.

Avonmouth, Shirehampton and Clifton Villages



Still a vision of getting the Henbury train loop in; still a vision for some more stations. Gloucester Road to Filton  and beyond and Whiteladies Road/A4018 to Cribb's causeway down as Strategic Cycling Routes. We have no idea what that means, and suspect the WoEP don't either, other than it means "no need to care about it anywhere else". Not that being a strategic cycle route will stop anyone painting out the bike lane.

Other points

1. "enhancements to the public realm". This is planner-speak for spending money on brickwork rather than functional transport systems.
2. There's not a single mention or illustration, anywhere, of people walking other than the phrase "cycling-and-walking" where the money will be split and each group will get their half of a pavement which will now have a white line down the middle. Yet for the inner core of Bristol and Bath, walking is the primary transport option. (we have no idea what it is for W-s-M, it probably involves riding a goat). 
3. Page 14, or "other charging mechanisms.". That's either a parking tax, Low Emission Zone tax, or a c-zone charge.

And finally, a look to the north east. That dashed green line? "Light Rail Transport —Route to be determined"


Unless you are going to build a tram line down up Fishponds road, there is only one place to put anything in there: the Bristol to Bath Railway Path.

The last time the WoEP wanted to put a bus down there, there was a mass uprising of inner Bristol, with some support from outside. Doe they really think things will have got better now? Do they not realise that killing the path for the sake of a slightly faster commute to/from Emerson's Green is going to be acceptable? Not a chance.

Suggest: recognise that the traffic volume, walking and cycling, down the BBRP is higher than any tram can achieve, and doesn't cost £2.6B. Council would be better off filing plans to run trams down there into the box of "stupid ideas we will pretend we never considered".

Where is our election coverage?

People come up to us and ask questions. Usually we like them to say "would you like some more beer?", rather than the more frequent question, "Are you aware of the national speed limit in this country, sir?".

Most recently, people have been asking: "where is your electoral coverage?"

Well, we've been primarily leaving it to other reporting outlets, specifically the Bristolian and Bristol 24/7. If people are putting effort in to analyse voting records, do interviews and organise hustings, that's enough.

A more relevant question people ask us is: who should we vote for?

As the people printing the ballots, we can say "you can't vote for UKIP on our photocopies as he falls off the end". Which is ironic as the spherical model of the earth is one of those sciency-things that UKIP candidates argue about, along with Climate Change and Newton's Laws of Motion (especially the bit that says the kinetic energy in a collision goes up with the square of the velocity).

Instead you get to make your mind up, noting that as Tony Dyer is the only one ever to have bought team members (including the late Chris Hutt) beer, he's got a head start.

What we recommend is you, the voter, place the following items in the order you feel is most important.

[ ] Right to speed at 35+ mph through the inner city
[ ] Right to park where you want in the city
[ ] Fundamental issues in society

The Fundamental issues in society box can include: education; housing; the central-government imposed austerity program and the fact that it will get worse; how and why so few people brought up in Bristol are in science and engineering jobs in north fringe technical companies, Bristol's Air Quality Management Area and other environmental issues; Firstbus & Metrobus. All the things that matter to those people who don't recognise that the choice between 20 mph and 30 mph is the most important issue facing the city today.

Then choose a politician that appears to prioritise issues in an order closest to your own. That's your first vote.




For the second vote you decide who you don't want in: Marvin or George —and vote for the other. Clear?

BRS: Lessons from PDX

The Bristol Traffic team has actually been on a council-funded trip round the world to see what ideas we could adopt in the city to make it more successful. Finally, after months of first class travel and hotels, we have found it -in Portland Airport.

Portland is a relatively small city in the US; less population than, say, Glasgow —and doesn't actually merit an acronym or nickname the way, say 'NYC, LA, Vegas" and others do. Instead it tends to adopt the initials of its airport, PDX. Bristol is similar, except most people in the UK don't know the initials for Bristol International Airport, BRS. Well, use it enough and maybe they'll learn.

Anyway, the first thing you see thing when you get off your plane in PDX is the signs towards some bicycle assembly area. THIS IS NOT WHAT WE ARE ADVOCATING.



A bike assembly area in BRS would only go in if the airport could charge cyclists for using it —and they could only do that by making it illegal to assemble your bicycle near the airport. They'd probably just make it illegal to cycle to it, just as LHR have done by converting the cycle tunnel to road traffic and fining anyone who cycles down it.

No, what's of interest to us is the sign 180 degrees behind the camera here, the one at airport security

Please be advised recreational marijuana is not permitted on flights travelling outside of Oregon.

That's a bit late to see that sign; there isn't one when you load a 14 kg rucksack in as hold luggage, and it is clearly one with implications. If they have to have a sign saying "you can't fly outside of Oregon with weed", then by implication "if you are flying within the state —you can". And they are right.

It is now legal to grow 4 ganja plants of your own: provided you live more than 1000 yards from a school. Imagine that —people would be looking at the catchment area maps of the city to make sure they weren't living near a school; it would turn the current game on its head. House prices would actually go down the closer you were to a school.

It even complicates the university: should their agriculture department start projects to advise farmers on the growing of industrial scale marijuana? Some proposals are on hold because it conflicts with federal funding, and despite the enthusiasm of graduate students to study for a PhD in Marijuana Agriculture, the existing farmers have many years of experience growing weed. All that is happening now is the farmers can do it in public and pay income tax.

Because that's where things are going: industrial scale farming for selling in California and Seattle. It's now got a new problem for the city: how to manage the planning permissions for where to grow and process this "new" commercial product.



It's actually been an open secret in the state that weed was the big rural earner with the demise of logging; it battled with Intel x86 parts for maximum income and profit margins —it just wasn't something that could be discussed publicly. And, unlike CPU foundries, it's something that those towns whose livelihoods had been destroyed by the end of logging could take up, more reliable income than tourism, and generally a wholesome product people could enjoy,

Imagine if Bristol legalised the recreational use of ganja, the growing of plants, and in N. Somerset, full scale agriculture.

It would transform the city!

We would become the powerhouse of the south west, one to rival London! We'd get visitors from all over the country to spend a weekend —and Weston super Mare would become Britain's most popular summer holiday destination.

It would also finally end the gulf between the city and the countryside. The North Somerset Agricultural Show would be transformed from somewhere where range rover owners from near the A370 could turn up and talk about their "crops" to one where range rover owners from near Montpelier could turn up and talk about their "crops" —and the Somerset farmers would listen intently, offer to buy some of the product, then even offer the city folk some paid consultancy.

As the ganja industry grew, North Somerset would move beyond a dormitory county for the city, to one where people would commute too from the inner city, to help "work the farms". Oh, and then there's the pick-your-own harvesting event, which would be a national festival.

And of course all this will bring in money: the tax from the plants, the income tax from the staff, staff who will be earning more than minimum wage as they bring the skills acquired over the years to full use. All those visitors, those tourist events -more money, enough for Weston to move beyond Dismaland as a national tourism event. And all the town will be outside on a sunny summer evening, lighting up in the parks, turning up the sounds of Bristol music, and getting stoned of our heads.

How about it then, prospective candidates for Bristol Mayor? Who is going to look at the lessons from Portland, Colorado, Seattle —and campaign on a "legalised marijuana industry for the greater bristol area"?

where are the speedo-watching crashes?

Here are the two petitions to look at

Speeders: Scrap the 20mph limit in Bristol and restore common sense  now at 8045
Keepers: Keep and extend 20mph limits now at 1680

One claim in the Speeders' petition is

"roads will only be made more dangerous with frustrated drivers and people watching the speedo rather than where they're going!"

We haven't noticed that ourselves, as we have a special speed limiter in our car called "the gear stick". Put it into "speed band 3", or "3rd gear" as it is sometimes known and it burbles along quite happily at 20-24mph, except in the special case that someone drives so close that you can see the driver's nostril hair and you slowly lift your foot of the accelerator to drop to precisely 19 mph just to see the expression on the driver's face in your rear view mirror.

Anyway, it may be that the speed petitioners don't have manual transmissions, or are somehow unable to determine road speed, and do have to look at the speedo all the time.

This is something we can test now that the central 20 mph zone is over a year old. All we have to do is look at the data.

One irony here is that if they do occur, the fact that they will take place at 20 mph means the police aren't likely to get involved. Any crash involving pedestrian, cyclist or stationary object will be less likely than at 30 mph to injure anyone, so they may not get called out. Indeed, even the insurance companies may not get a look in if people care about their no claims discount. head-on collisions will still have 40-50 mph of energy, so are more likely to show up. This means official data sources: —police and insurance— may show a reduction in RTCs even if there has been an increase in RTC events.

We ask the speeders, then: where are the speedo-watching crashes?

1. How many crashes in 20 mph zone have you personally been involved in where you or another participant was looking at the speedo at the time?
2. Have you heard of any such crashes —and do you have the contact details for us to follow up on this?
3. Is there any other evidence for an speedo-watching crashes in the central bristol zone?

We've had the zone for 18 months now, with millions of journeys in it by now. If speedo-watching crashes are a risk in 20 mph zones, we should have seen some. 

If we don't have the any signs of speedo-watching crashes, then, it could be due to

1. They are happening, but the massive lower energies in the collisions cause them to be unreported
2. That whole claim about "watching speedos causes crashes" is bollocks.

#2 is the null hypothesis: 20 mph limits do not cause speedo-watching crashes, is the one which has to be disproved to a significant degree of statistical confidence before it can be believed.

We put it to the speeders then: show us the data.

Now, assuming, on the off-chance that there is the data, that speedo-watching does cause crashes, hence 20 mph zones are more hazardous than 30 mph zones, why do the petitioners still propose lower limits by schools?




Either 20 mph zones are more dangerous due to speedo-watching or 20 mph zones are safer round schools.

So if that claim "20 mph is more dangerous" isn't utter bollocks, then, if the speed campaigners really believed it, they should be pushing for 30 mph zones round schools "for the children".

Speeders: show us the data —you've had 18 months to collect it.

(photo: kid scootering to school outside Christchurch School, Clifton, pre-RPZ)

Unhappy speeders

In our ground breaking analysis of the geographic distribution of the speeders and the 20 milers in the city,  we were picked up on for our statement "They must live very unhappy lives."

Good catch. Judging by the reaction to the post, we should have concluded "they are very angry people"

It's as if they spent a lot of time in traffic jams or stuck at the lights -blaming George Ferguson for every minute of their wasted life

We were particularly called out on our assertion that the 38% of out of town petitioners on the "right to speed" campaign don't count.




Specifically, the accusation of misinformation came about because of the T&Cs of the council's petition policy, which states

If your petition has received 3500 signatories or more from people who live, work or study in Bristol it can then trigger a full council debate [see page 5] and if this is the case we will discuss with the lead petitioner the options for enabling this to take place.

We are not attempting to misinform anyone. Look at what we wrote

Of the speeders, 38% of them don't live in in Bristol. Which means they are, as far as Bristol elections are concerned, as relevant as residents of the Isle of Wight. They don't have a vote, all they have is a whine.

See that? If you live outside the city, you are electorally irrelevant. Which may or may not transfer into the decisions about the region and its transport policy.

If you lived out of the city, you wouldn't have got a bit of a paper asking if you wanted a referendum on having a mayor —you didn't get a say. You wouldn't have got a bit of paper saying "who do you want to be mayor" —again: you don't get a say.

The fact that the council has a policy for petitions is something to cherish. The fact that they even let people from outside the city add their names shows that we do value those people who live out of town. But when it comes down to whom the council has to prioritise, it's the residents who vote for the councillors and mayors.

Everyone outside gets to make a whining sound, either in their own home, the BEP web site or their car sitting on the M32.

Is that fair? Maybe. Is it functional? Not for a region wide transport policy. But here's the problem: the N Somerset and S Gloucs councillors like their little kingdoms too much to share them.

Here we see Elf-King App Rees switching from demanding that the Clifton RPZ be removed

...to screaming that George F is trying to dictate parking policy in Leigh Woods.

He loves being a small fish in a very small pond, and any attempt at having a broader region for  democratic governance as a threat.

Is S Gloucs any better? Well, they are very proud of the the fact that they are not quite Bristol, even to the extent of having a "Welcome to South Gloucestershire" partway along the Filton Road weekday traffic jam. Because Filton is, after all, distinct from its neighbours. But they do ask staff at the N Fringe of the city for their input on the latest bit of random roadworks.

What is not clear, though, is Why is Filton out of Bristol? . Same for those bits in N.E. Bristol. Emerson's Green, Rodway Common, etc. Part of the featureless hinterland of the city. And yet: you don't get a say —only the right to get angry about things happening in a city nearby.

Daylight running lights: the helmets of cars

It's been mandatory since 2011 for cars to have daylight running lights ("DRLs"). Is this a good thing? Or just it just up the arms race between motorcyclists, cars, pedestrians and cyclists?

For a change, there's actually some research on this topic, in the form of a 2008 study from the US government, "The Effectiveness of Daytime Running Lights For Passenger Vehicles". Bear in mind that the sample set of this study is of course US drivers, who are a lot more common than US ones to drive round at night without lights on. DRLs partially mitigate for this inattentiveness —or it may amplify it if drivers don't notice they have their lights off, on account of the DRLs illuminating in front of them.

Abstract

The analysis evaluates the effects of daytime running lights (DRLs) against three types of target crashes: (1) two-passenger- vehicle crashes excluding rear-end crashes, (2) single-passenger-vehicle to pedestrians/cyclists crashes, and (3) single- passenger-vehicle to motorcycle crashes. Each crash type was examined at three crash severity levels – fatal, injury, and all severity. The basic approach is a control-comparison analysis of real-world crash involvements for DRL-equipped vehicles and non-DRL vehicles. Ratio of odds ratios were used to derive the DRL effects. A 95-percent confidence interval was used to infer statistically significant conclusions. The Fatality Analysis Reporting System and the State Data System were the crash data sources used for this analysis.

The analysis found that DRLs have no statistically significant overall effects on the three target crashes. When combining these three target crashes into one target crash, the DRL effects were also not statistically significant. When examined separately for passenger cars and light trucks/vans (LTVs), DRLs in LTVs significantly reduced LTVs’ involvements in the target two-vehicle crashes by 5.7 percent. However, the remaining DRL effects on these three target crashes were not statistically significant. Although not statistically significant, DRLs might have unintended consequences for pedestrians and motorcyclists. Particularly, the estimated negative effects for LTVs were relatively large and cannot be completely ignored.

The final two sentences are the highlight: from the survey done 8 years ago, it appears that daylight running lights may make it more dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists. And what are LTVs? That's pickups and SUVs.

The study was conducted by looking at crash statistics and seeing if those vehicles with DRLs were in crashes more or less. It wasn't a randomized sample (give people cars with DRLs on or off), which could skew the numbers (drivers of volvos are safer than drivers of ford mustangs, etc, older cars have worse brakes, etc.). Furthermore, as whether full lights were on or off wasn't recorded, the impact of DRLs at dawn or dusk can't be established.

Going in to the details, skip the maths unless you want to learn more about statistics., go to P4.10

based on the combined PC (Passenger Car) and LTV (Pickups and SUVs) results, DRLs seemed to have no overall effect on daytime target crashes.

See that? No statistically significant affects whatsoever. They are the helmets of cars: useless, yet designed to make you feel bad for not having them.

Now, P 4-14

For all crashes, again the estimates were not statistically significant. However, based on the combined State data, DRL effects for both PCs and LTVs were negative. Overall, DRLs seemed to increase Single-PV-to-PED/CYC crashes by 5.6 percent.

There you have it then. A feature which does nothing for overall safety rates, but which actually appears to increase risk for pedestrians and cyclists.

And on P 4-16, motorbikes

DRLs seemed to increase daytime Single-PV- to-Motorcycle crashes by 1.2 and 17.3 percent for PCs and LTVs, respectively. Overall, DRLs seemed to increase daytime Single-PV-to-Motorcycle crashes by 5.0 percent. None of these effects were statistically significant.

There you go then: daylight running lights appear to slightly increase the risk to vulnerable road users, while delivering no benefit whatsoever for the occupants of the car themselves.

Given this data: they do nothing for cars and endanger others, why offer it, and then why mandate it?

Offering it in cars could be assigned to a belief that it does make a difference (possibly even some unpublished data that it does).  Or, more cynically, because if possible purchasers ares somehow convinced that DRLs improve their safety, then they would buy that particular model of cars, possibly paying a premium. If you are a car manufacturer who discovered that spending £1 to ensure your car lights stayed on all the time could earn you £100 —you'd do it.

But why mandate it? That would remove all differentiation between vendors?

Some hypotheses(*)

1. Politicians also mistakenly believe there is a safety benefit, and that by mandating it they can improve safety.
2. Politicians don't care where it is beneficial or not, they just want to be seen to be doing something that they can take credit for and doesn't cost much.
3. It is used as an excuse to avoid fundamental changes in road safety. Here the car manufacturers would be lobbying politicians. Unlike other features (ABS, Airbags) which actually cost money, DRLs are cheap to roll out. You'd push for them if the alternatives cost money.

Whatever the reason, its motorcyclists, pedestrians and cyclists who appear to lose out.

(*) There is also the theory that there is some other work that through some controlled A/B test shows that it does make a difference, and furthermore politicians have read and understood the details. This hypothesis is considered significantly unlikely.

Who to vote for? Some of the above

As Bristol's premier data science organisation —and one of the few press outlets people trust— people ask us: who should we vote for?

Our answer: anyone you like —but.

Which is where our game theory work comes into play.

First though, consider all the members of Clifton Tank Command who kept on saying "but the nurses!" and "but the schoolteachers!", when arguing against the RPZ.

1. It's probably the hospital porters who have the worst job. Ask them how little they get paid for a 10-12 hour shift? It's just that "but the hospital porters!" doesn't conjure up those Florence Nightingale scenes of the selfless nurse —so doesn't get used when seeking sympathy.
2. Ask the nurses, hospital porters or other staff what is the worse thing to happen to them in the last five years. The Clifton RPZ or Jeremy Hunt's "reforms"? Because it won't be parking (probably).
3. Similarly, ask the school teachers: "what is worse, the Clifton RPZ or Michael Gove's 4+ years in charge of education"? Because it won't be parking (probably).

All those people who were citing teachers and nurses in opposition to the RPZ now have a choice: do they vote for the parties that made things worse at a national level, or do they not. Because if they do vote Tory or LibDem, they abdicate the right to pretend to care about the wellbeing of all public sector employees.

What about the rest of us? This is where it gets interesting, especially in Bristol West.

LibDem.

1. In 2010, the fact that the Conservative Party could gain an outright majority by working with the LibDems meant that they needed them, either in a coalition or on a vote-by-vote basis. 
2. The LD team went for coalition. This gave them a seat at the table —but in exchange, they gave the Cameron government the majority they desired. 
3. In exchange for that majority, the LDs got support for two referendums: electoral reform and house of lords reform. They got promised them, but then had the Tory party actively opposing them, and plans fell through. If electoral reform had gone through, all the smaller parties would be happy this election, and the LD would stand a chance of counting MPs in double digits next week. As it is: they lost. And in doing so, lost all that they could have gained from the coalition.  They've made their play —and lost.
4. Theymade the mistake of promising support for five years. Once they'd done that: all negotiating power was lost.
5. This week, they are arguing that they can be good for either a Labour or Tory government -but to negotiate hard with either party, they need to be absolutely prepared to work with the other party. Which means if you vote for them, you, the voter, don't get any say in who is the government. Only, possibly, the identity of some of the members of that government, and one or two of their actions.

If the LD are to have power next time round, they need to play differently. First: don't trust Cameron to deliver on any promise. You want agreements -get a lawyer to spell out all the T&Cs, not some handshake over tea. Better yet: supply votes on a case-by-case basis, and demand concessions on every single vote. That way lies power.

Labour

They're slowly exiting the Blair era, but following the press too much -making promises about "never forming a government with the SNP" which actually hampers their negotiating options. It would have been better to be vague. 

Conservative

Just move to North Somerset now. We don't need your folk in the city.  

It was only the early 1990s when Bristol West was conservative, but nowadays that's viewed as utterly unrealistic —which is why they can stand up candidates that are quite happy to denounce the Cycling City work as a waste of money, whilst not denouncing the Managed M4 as equally useless for the majority of Bristol W commuters. She's also stopped updating her web site some time in February, showing her commitment to getting elected or an understanding of computers on a par with UKIP candidates.

One thing that is notable is that their agenda has moved from anything forward looking, even from anything about preserving their accomplishments (where is that Michael Gove person? Or Jeremy Hunt?). Instead they've actually focused on being anti-scottish. And while they say "no, anti-SNP": that's not how it comes across. It comes across as saying Scotland isn't welcome in shaping what kind of nation Britain will be in the 21st century. Which a fair Scots find somewhat offensive. A majority of the country did vote to stay in the UK, so why push them away?

SNP

They've moved on from banners saying "Bannockburn, 1314 -we remember". Glasgow has embraced them —and in doing so, they've embraced Glasgow; Scotland's city of the workers, with the history of Red Clydeside and the closest Britain has ever come to a communist uprising. They promise to give Labour the heritage they've forgotten.

Green

Here's some fun.  The Green party appear to be in second place in Bristol West, not that far off from Labour. And they do seem to have some more posters up than the others —though given the general lack of posters, that's fairly meaningless.

Bristol W. is the Green's targeted second seat? Does that mean they will win it? They presumably hope that by repeating it often enough people will believe them and they'll get that majority. At the same time, there's that risk that the anti-coalition vote will be split, Stephen Williams will get in, so giving the LDs more negotiating power, and so the likelihood that Cameron stays in his office.

Independents for Bristol

They exist, apparently. Maybe as local councillors they'll have a role.

Plaid Cymru

They never come over to Bristol to campaign. And there's us with a River Avon. Someone should stand on their behalf. Over in Wales, it'll be interesting to see what happens, and if they can gain that same momentum that the SNP have got.

UKIP?

Emigrate to Spain and spend the rest of your miserable life whining about immigration. For reference, the people in Edinburgh didn't attack Farage out of racist hate of the English: they did it because he's a pillock.

Friday AM will have Labour and Tory short of a majority, 2+ smaller parties trying to have power and influence over them by promising support. The LD experience of 2010 has shown the danger of a coalition with the conservative; Scotland learned about the worthlessness of Cameron's promises the day after the referendum, so won't be sitting down with him.

Tory will be able to talk to: DUP, LD and perhaps UKIP. Hopefully UKIP will be irrelevant. DUP aren't too different from the conservative party, and won't make things better or worse. The LDs? Will they have learned their lessons from last time and negotiate better, or again, give up their ideals for an office with a phone?

Labour is going to have to talk to the SNP, which is why Milliband's absolute refusals to work with them are shortsighted.

Meanwhile, the majority of the press will be saying a government with the SNP in it —or supported by the SNP— is not legit. Well, here's some bad news, since the mid 1980s Scotland has been almost entirely unrepresented by any conservative government (thank the "campaign for a tory-free Scotland" there). That's led to a pretty abusive relationship coming up from the south, the Poll Tax (seen above) being the key example. Having a government with the SNP involved would actually be fairer than those conservative governments from 1988 to 1997: Thatcher and Major.

Anyway, your call. Just bear in mind that if you are voting LD in the general election, there is a high chance you are actually voting for a conservative government. Voting Green you may be making Bristol West stand out as a green city, or losing your choice to have a say in the country. 

Us? A joint SNP+Labour government with a couple of green MPs would be an interesting government to have.

PS: what about their actual manifestos? Meaningless. Why analyse things made up for press releases. Interesting that only the SNP think Trident is an utter waste of money; only the LibDems have raised the fact that our government's monitoring of everyone's emails may be something to question. That topic didn't even make the press. But then neither has the environment. Arguing about whether Scottish MPs could form part of a government take priority over policy, apparently.

Should we fear the new mayor of City Hall?

A letter hits our inbox:

I know you may have concerns that our new mayor doesn't have the need of the city's important car drivers close to his heart.

Hopefully this picture of him parking his car on double yellow lines in a bus stop will put your mind at ease.

I'd feel more comfortable if he was driving a 4x4 or transit van rather than an electric Smart car, but you can't have everything.

Looks good to us: he's already got a bicycle and a pedestrian in front of the car, ready to run them over.

B.T. nearly-approved Candidate: Owain George

As we fear that Cllr Gollop will betray us, our next favourite candidate is Owain George, candidate for Clifton

.

He says clearly

• I will recognise that cars are the preferred means of travel & free up the city so they can move about again
• Stop the extension of bus & cycle lanes where they do not work, are counter-productive or actually dangerous
• Deal with problems affecting the flow of traffic in the city
• Welcome businesses with staff who need to park at work
• Create more on street parking so that independent shops & businesses can compete with shopping centres

We actually suspected that he was some spoof candidate, as he's almost the opposite of George Ferguson.

• George Ferguson: red trousers, runs a brewery, praises cycling
• Owain George: blue trousers, runs a pub, praises driving. Poses for a photo with his hand on his "tender parts" to show how sensitive he is.

Our real concern is something different: Owain George owns the Albion Pub, Clifton.

Albion Clifton used to be nice pub in Clifton to which you could drive, leave the engine running, pop in to have a swift 8 pints and then carry on with your HGV delivery schedule. Used to be.


Today, the has council needlessly blocked Boyce's Avenue to parking. Here we have a mayoral candidate that can not even stop the council taking away the parking spaces from outside his own pub. How can this person claim to be able to push back the anti-car actions of our city!

Worse than this though: today the Albion is a gastropub.

Gastropubs are a plague upon the hard-working delivery drivers in the city. Before, we could nip into places like the Albion, the Pump House and many other destinations, to take the edge off a tiring job. If you were really hungry: go to a cafe and have bacon and eggs.

Now those pub owners refuse to serve you unless you sit down and order veal with your quails eggs, and make you pay five pounds for some "authentic" beer.

Similarly, he offers to create more on-street parking. It's a nice promise, but where? Clifton has even run out of corners to corner park on -which would leave the zebra crossing between the Albion and Clifton Village proper -but that's where tesco's HGVs park for deliveries.


 


There we have it. The one openly cyclist hating, car parking advocate for the mayoral elections turns out to be a gastropub owner who can't even prevent the street in front of his gastropub becoming pedestrians only.


This is why we think that even though his opinions may be aligned with ours, his inability to execute on them renders him worthless even as the #1 'disposable' vote.


Who does that leave? Spud Murphy, who appears to have left a Wurzels concert after too much cider -and frankly would make Bristol's reputation for being provincial worse -or that traveller who cite his address as Stokes Croft and judging by the manifesto has clearly imbued too much of the Stokes Croft retail pharmaceutical portfolio. No, not Chris Chalkley -someone else.

Bristol Traffic Mayoral Election -Candidate Gollup: cycling city is safe in my hands:

We now have officially backed two candidates for the City for holding opinions that match with our goals: Cllr Gollop (cons) and Owain George (clifton)

Cllr Gollup has already been documented as the sole councillor prepared to denounce the cycle city program
 As he said in 2001:
"The Cycling City initiative brought in match-funding which has delivered new cycling routes but these have largely been achieved at the expense of the majority of road users - by reducing road space or capacity

That is precisely what we think. Except now he is either lying through his teeth to get elected, or he has completely betrayed us. He is quoted in the Evening Post this year:
"Getting more people cycling is absolutely key to the future of the city because it will also reduce the city's carbon footprint and congestion during the rush hour."

​

Councillor Geoff Gollop says as mayor he would encourage sport and cycling

We hope he's  just taken some advice from his London leaders, and is now is lying to get into power.

But how to know. We've tried to contact him to ask "are you really holding strong to your principles and just lying to get elected, or has something happened to your brain?"

No answer.

The Mayoral Elections

So far we've been silent on the topic of the elections -it's down to the conservative and UKIP candidates to see who gets the white-van vote. Although the tories are targeting the white van constituency at the national level, Cllr Gollop is now being pro-cycling city, which makes us worried. It could just be he's realised that the elves of Somerset and the dwarves of Gloucestershire have no vote, so there's no point promising anything to the commuters who keep this city afloat.

 
What we haven't seen from that candidate is any sign that he really does support these bicycle things, which is why we do think it is just a facade. It's the other candidates that worry us.

Here we are shocked to see Cllr John Rogers, LD candidate for the election, alongside his folding brompton bicycle and looking cheerful, here in the autonomous district of Montpelier, leaning his toy vehicle against the community bike rack put in to help the vans turn the corner.

The Bristol Traffic Project is considering conducting interviews with all the candidates, to see where they really stand on the issues that matter. What questions should we ask? And remember, they have to be questions that support our agenda, not some hippy-hobbist anti-motorist plot

Walthamising Hotwells

One of the Clifton Traffic Calming proposals -voted for, with support from the Waltham Forest Faction of the ruling LibDem party, was to remove some yellow lines from this road "to calm traffic", with a key justification being this is near a school and it would improve safety. This perfect Walthamisation: to improve the facilities for us, the motorists, using the walking and cycling part of the council budget, and claiming it is for "their own good". Waltham Forest excels in this, such as in the downgrading of a route to the Olympics, though we are surprised at how much it cost to make it so easy to PavePark. We in Bristol don't need such help.

This is the road covered. There are some buildouts already, one positioned to protect the wingmirrors of cars, and room on the other side of the road to park. The target area must be further down the hill.

Ah yes, here it is. A narrow stretch, two chicanes and then a wide space -wide enough to get two small cars into.

But here's a question: is this worth spending political capital on? Barbara Janke, Cllr for Clifton (Waltham Forest Ward), is in charge of a minority council that often cites its green foundations as a way of differentiating it. To remove some double yellow lines "to calm traffic" is going to get bad press in the green-troublemaker news outlets (fortunately, not the BBC or Evening Post), and embarrass others in the council. For what? Two parking spaces.

It may seem odd, but we in the Bristol Traffic project are against the proposal for two reasons. One is this: there are more important places to add parking areas that a back road near Hotwells

The other --and this is key-- is this: double yellow lines provide Clifton parents with designated dropoff areas on the school run. Those two parking spaces would be wasted on residents or commuters, as only two people a day will benefit from each new space; four people per day on a weekday, dropping down to one person/day on a weekend. Twelve vehicles a week. Whereas as a short-stay parking area, you could have ten parents a morning queuing up to do dropoffs, push the kids out and carry straight on into the city, without having to get out the car.

It is far more valuable for parental dropoff than for resident and commuter parking, and if the councillors don't realise this, they are talking to the residents and not the school parents. If we sent our kids to this school, we'd be in touch with Barbara Janke and others defending our right to park here, instead of saying "yes, we think two more residents should park here." Who cares about the residents? That's four voters, compared to the possibly twenty that ten families could offer.

The other thing is that traffic calming claim looks, well, weak. You could push it for Pembroke Road -you can get up to speed. But here? Even with a buildout dropped enough to let vans go over it, you can't keep your speed up, you have to give way at the bottom anyway.

For the sake of twelve extra vehicle parking opportunities a week, Barbara and Terry are going to make enemies of everyone in the school, as well as devalue the entire "LibDem are green" brand. Admittedly, their Westminster School and Parliament compatriots are doing the same thing, but if you look at the recent election results, not only did the Green party take a LibDem seat, they came second in a few other wards. The cost of adding two parking spaces here -both financial and political - doesn't justify it. Two happy residents, some commuters who aren't even in the same ward as the councillors, and 40-50 annoyed parents plus the local green troublemakers blogging about it -and maybe even letting the evening post in on the joke, so that Barbara gets laughed at as much as Gary "bus stop" Hopkins did.

This is just political ineptitude.

Clifton Park: one possibility

We borrowed Quercus's Land Rover to drive over to Clifton Park one morning, to see where excessive parking restrictions were endangering people.

Well, it's not by Clifton High, as the excessive restrictions at this end (the zebra crossing zig-zags and the school keep clear zone) are both in use for child dropoff. These restrictions therefore provide an important feature for important school run parents, and so should be retained.

Looking the other way, no, no parking restrictions at all. What were these road safety campaigners going on about?

Then a bit further down we saw it. Can you see here? Where there is enough space for a bicycle to go safely along without fear of being hit by a car. Exactly. Without Fear. We don't want that, as it only encourages them.


Real road safety campaigners would actually push for a zebra crossing here, as that crossing by the school is the only way to cross this wide and busy road. But we don't want that, it will take away more long-stay parking spots. Instead we are going to pretend that it's all about safety, when really it's about convenience.

On this, large double yellow lined road, only the car X411WCG is bold enough to assert their rights to park here, even before the excessive restrictions have been removed.

If people are prepared to park here, even when they will get ticketed and fined (at least on those three days a year when the rule is enforced), then that's enough to justify. As it isn't right next to a school, making it residential parking wouldn't remove any school run parking opportunities. If it makes it more hazardous to cycle round the back streets of Clifton, well, if we cared about that, we wouldn't be pushing for more parking -and the ward wouldn't have voted Barbara and Terry back in, would they?

In a cycling city, this space would be turned into a segregated cycle path, before anyone got used to the idea of parking here.

But while Bristol is a Cycling City, Clifton is not part of the city -it's older- and so exempt from any of these changes.

Clifton Politicians: the imagination of Goldfishes

Back in March, we noted Clifton's proposals to sneak in some extra double yellow line removal, using "traffic calming" as the excuse. Well, it's been approved. More on that another day.

But before we look at the councillors actions, let's look at the opposing team, which in Clifton means the Conservative Party, leader one R. Murdoch. The losing candidate the May Election says "we need more imaginative thought to solve the problem" of parking. In particular, this ambitious politician is "undertaking a survey of the entire community, finding out where yellow lines are needed and where they can be taken away" and by doing so, he has found 100 metres of double yellow lines that aren't needed.

Well, Clifton certainly needs help if it is not to become like Montpelier, as LY52RKV and  S899ANW are forced to do. Yet these are nice cars, with wingmirrors -and Montpelier parking doesn't suit them.

We asked one of the tax dodgers what they thought of the proposals, and got this reply, which we quote unedited:

Those yellow lines aren't just wasted parking, they probably stop roads being blocked, helping through traffic, and make it easier to pass bicycles. Replace that with unrestricted parking and what do you get? 25 more cars.

That's not imaginative.

That's about as imaginative as a goldfish.

Imagination would be pushing for even one car club car bay in Clifton.

Imagination would be to put in bike parking in the village so that people don't need a car to drive from their house to the shops.

Imagination would be to discourage parents from driving their kids to school by enforcing rules about keep-clear and parking on pavements.

Imagination would be to use a resident permit scheme to limit car ownership, eliminate commuter parking and ensure that "sustainable" housing has an even harder limit on the number of cars per household.

Imagination would be to encourage the residents to use the bus, instead of trying to reduce the number of hours the new bus lane will be running.

This shows no imagination whatsoever and is painful to read. Are you sure the Clifton Conservatives web site isn't some kind of spoof?

Obviously, we don't agree with any of the actions, but we have to agree with their comments about imagination. It is the lack of action from the authorities that are forcing the residents to act for themselves. Such as here, where DV60XJL is forced to park on the yellow lines and pavements outside Tesco Express.

But even that is fiddling around the edges. As the tax-dodger notes, 100m of yellow lines only transfers into 25 spaces for important vehicles. Noise. And more to the point, we are already using a lot of that space already. It's not "unused parking", it's parking areas reserved for important people in a hurry -such as the Mercedes N445CRP.

Even if we don't want people thinking outside the box, we do want our councillors to think of a much bigger box than adding 25 more cars to Clifton. Or maybe thirty if you force the cars in hard enough.

We want much, much more. Here's what we propose

• Making the downs all year round car parking, rather than a pay-to-use luxury on summer weekends
• Removing  zebra crossings, school keep clear zones, and that bit outside the church, as they all take up space. 
• Adding a multi-storey car park somewhere within the area. Yes, it's full of old listed buildings, but that didn't stop a large car park going up on the edge of St Pauls, did it?

Faffing around with 100m of yellow lines isn't going to solve the problems the area has. At least the locals are already imagining more than this so-called-contender has to offer. This is important, as the councillors in charge share the same limited imagination; it is down to us citizens to act.

For the next few days, we're going to cover Clifton!

The bikelash has arrived!

Over in New York, there's a fantastic power struggle going on, as important politicians fight troublemaking cyclists, to try and get a segregated bike path removed. There's a good summary online, by the economist John Cassidy. Sadly he, gets criticised not just by the usual activists, but by other economists. That worries us. If the people we trust to run the banks and get the global economy out of the mess the banks and the economists got it into can't even agree on how bad bicycles are for a city, well, it's not a good start. How can they come with a plan for the global economy that works if they can't even agree that bicycles and pedestrians don't belong in modern cities.

Here in Bristol, Cllr Gollop is one person who has taken a public stance, denouncing the Cycling City program for spending money, not increasing the number of cyclists they promised, and for taking away road space from us, the important people.:

"The Cycling City initiative brought in match-funding which has delivered new cycling routes but these have largely been achieved at the expense of the majority of road users - by reducing road space or capacity.

This is why Cllr -soon to be Mayor- Gollop is in the lead for the 2010 Bristol Traffic "councillor of the year" award. He's our kind of councillor.

Some of the cycling troublemakers have been asking "where are all the bits of road that Cllr Glossop said had been taken away for bicycles". That's tough -we had to nip out and get one of those cycle bristol maps and do some research.

1. Bike lanes? Same as ever: short stay parking.
2. Keep clear zones at school? Same as ever, though some yellow lines are going in -lines we can't blame on the bicycles.
3. The Kingsdown RPZ? The locals voted it for it so they'd have the opportunity to park after going for a drive. Selfish actions by inner city troublemakers, but not cycling-city work.
4. Bike Parking? Yes, this has taken space away, something to cover later.
5. 20 mph zones? A topic for another day.

What about the dedicated routes? In the city, the Farm Pub Path (tm) and the Eastville Park to UWE route all go through parks. We'd like roads there, so you could say it's a wasted opportunity, but it's not really taking up space. For economists, that's "opportunity cost", what you could have done with the money instead. Still, every segregated bike path is a bus route in waiting, as we and West of England Partnership say. As for the Hartcliffe way route -we've found that provides extra parking.

It seems to us, the things that have got worse over the cycling city timescale then are

• The removal of paveparking opportunities
• The 20 mph zone
• The increased cost of driving
• The showcase bus routes.

None of the cycling facilities have directly taken away any roadspace from cars.

What then was Cllr Glossop trying to say -what did he really mean? He meant this

To us, the important people of the city, the Cycling City program is a failure because the number of people on bicycles and hence in our way has increased.

It doesn't matter that no direct road space has been taken away in the inner city apart from eight paid parking spaces --the mere presence of bicycles slows us down. The fact that these people pay nothing while the cost of driving continually increases makes us even more angry.

This is of course the Daily Mail commenter line, but everyone is afraid to come out and say it. Not us, not John Cassidy -and not a lot of Evening Post commenters, but they don't make the proper economic argument. We shall.

Every bicycle holds up traffic, so while the private costs of a bicycle are low, the external cost is high. A bicycle occupying a whole lane takes up as much space as a car -and because it's going at half the speed, it slows down the cars behind it more than a single car would. The congestion cost of a bicycle is therefore higher than that of a motor car!

That's the real issue with the Cycling City. Not the infrastructure, not just the parking -taking away our pavements. It's the increase in bicycles on what the cycle planners call the key cycle routes to the city, but for which we have a different name: the main roads.

We've been saying this since 2008. Us, on our own, sometimes with help a couple of times a week from the niche papers the Evening Post and the Daily Mail. The BBC, they're on our side with Top Gear, but that's relegated to BBC2 now, and in their news broadcasts they don't often have people that speak our language. Even the AA, the RAC and the Association of British Drivers don't come out and spell out the real costs that cycling imposes on our city. As far as politics goes, we have Glossop and the Ministers Hammond and Pickles on our side -but the only party that wants to ban bicycles from important roads was the UK Independence Party. Nobody else speaks our language.

This is changing. Welcome to the bikelash.

[For anyone wishing to congratulate the councillor, his contact details are online. Why not email him and congratulate him for being on our side!]

The politics of copyright

We see that the "Turning Bristol Red" blog is using one of our photographs of Jon Rogers. Not just embedding, but putting a complete new copy up on their own server: http://turningbristolred.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/p1030249.jpg.

That was a photograph staged as part of the ongoing treegate story. Yes, like Top Gear, sometimes things are rigged. It was Chris Hutt's funeral, Jon was one of the people who stood up said nice things about Chris: it was a year today that we were all down at the Zetland Road junction, where Chris presented Jon with the second place in the Antibicycle awards.

It's bit of a shame, therefore, that what was a deliberately staged photograph at Chris's funeral has become, well politicised. This doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the text, it's worth a read and the audience can come to their own conclusions, only that the Bristol Traffic team doesn't like making enemies, as it interferes with our strategic plans. We sometimes see Jon in the street, he stops and says hello. And last week one of our reporters bumped into Paul Smith over in Portishead, where Paul was polite, despite the fairly muddy condition of the reporter. If someone we know and respect -such as the Bristol Blogger- had wanted the pic, we'd have said "yes, go for it", but we're not so bemused by someone using it who hasn't yet done anything to help us, and without even asking.

-

This site doesn't make any declaration of how our pictures can be re-used. There's an implicit declaration of copyright there -that it is retained by the original photographers. If people want to use our photographs elsewhere, it is not merely polite to ask, it is a requirement -something that someone trained in law should realise. We are pleased that our work has ended up being used in the campaign leaflets of the Labour, Green and LD parties over the past few years -everyone who asked got the response "yes". But they asked, they didn't just take.

This is particularly ironic given one of the last acts of the labour government was the Digital Economy Bill, which has some pretty awful provisions on copyright in the internet era, as record and DVD companies don't understand about how networks work, and would rather we all sat at home paying a premium to consume whatever Sky TV beams to us, with the little TV box then uploading statistics on what we watched. Not, say uploading our own photographs or videos to youtube, to become our own media reporters, whether it's on traffic issues in the city centre or -far better and braver- filming the overthrow of dictatorships from your mobile phones as you stand up to rulers that have declared a state of emergency for forty years.


It's also amusing given the experience of Crap Walking and Cycling in Waltham Forest, who had some of their artwork used by their Local Labour party; quite a story [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], though we suspect Freewheeler would be happier if they actually addressed some of the issues that the photographs raise.

Darren, you can re-use the four photos on this posting. That's two of you, one of Gary Hopkins and one of the Eastville ward results where Glenn Vowles is not that far behind the conservatives.

But not the current Jon pic you are using, and if you want any of our others, email us first.

Next time we're at an election we'll try and get some less blurred ones of you. We hear Charlie Bolton will be standing again, and he shared his chips with us. Nobody else did that.

Trouble in the Trees

Our coverage of forest sell off issues continues. Last week, how locking up the generally open forestry commission car parks will prevent us Bristolians from driving out of town to engage in casual sex with complete strangers.

This week, the mountain bikers join in. No, not with the casual sex with van drivers -they are too muddy and dress strange-  but with the sell off.

This time, it is the Bristol Trails Group, the people who build and maintain the MTB trails in Ashton Court, 50 acre wood, Leigh Woods and nearby, complaining that this will mean that most of the woods will be closed off to them. The problem is liability insurance, more than anything else. Who wants to pay for the insurance for letting bicycles in. Far more profitable to turn it over to private shooting facilities instead, for important people. This will ruin the plans to have a mountain bike centre near Bristol. While we obviously don't engage in any such actions ourselves, every MTB-er who cycles over to Ashton Court not only means one less car on the M4 heading to Wales, it provides entertainment for us in the city to see these people coming home again covered in mud.

We note the Conservative MP for the Forest of Dean will be appearing at a meeting in Coleford, at 7pm tonight. This sell off matters as much to Bristol as it does to the Forest of Dean, so attendance there may be fun.


We also note that there is a public consultation on the proposals, a consultation which invites feedback. And what is the address for feedback?

Forestry Commission England
620 Bristol Business Park
Coldharbour Lane
Bristol
BS16 1EJ

By our estimate, that is just over the Recognised Pedestrian Route from the UWE campus. If some ukuncut/no-to-tuition-fee-rises/no-to-forest-sell-off-event were to take place up there one weekday afternoon, it could be, well, entertaining.

Fun in the Forest

We're a bit concerned about government plans to privatise the forests. This is not because we have taken up mountain biking -even though we appreciate such activities do not get in our way, we fear that they encourage the riders to get fit during the week by commuting.


We're slightly worried that even our papers, like the Daily Telegraph, are expressing doubts. But frankly we don't care that much about dog walking, horse riding or other daytime leisure activities.
 
Some people may think we would be in favour of cutting down the trees, putting in more shopping malls, new suburbs. Motorways. But remember, we are part of a big society that uses those forests for night time activities too.

Who hasn't nipped up the M4, over the old bridge and up to the Forest of Dean, pulled in one of the laybys and had an intimate encounter with a complete stranger from time to time? It doesn't matter about your sexual preferences, it's classless: MP, priest, van driver, housewife, TV presenter of football or car shows -it's all the same in the dark. Anonymous entertainment, with only the bridge tax to stop us doing more than three or four times a week.


And with our van being a roaming retail outlet for the city's sex life's accessories, those trips can a big business for us. Selling safe sex accessories in the 'dean can be a nice little earner -some of those TV presenters have been round the block a few times, and you need all the protection we can sell you.

The proposals to sell of the country's forest to the highest bidder will interfere with small businesses all round the country. 

There's a national campaign against this organising a petition; everyone should sign. There's also a local group, Hands off our Forest, working for the Forest of Dean itself.

These people have been very active, and have this lovely quote from their conservative MP Mark Harper on Jan 3 2011:

there are not and never have been any plans to sell off the Forest of Dean to developers who would cut down the Forest to replace it with recreation parks.

This is beautiful. If they say, sell off half the forest to developers who cut it down and replace it with recreation parks, the MP was being honest. If they say, sell of the entire forest, cut it down and replace it with suburban housing estates, the MP can say they were speaking truthfully. And if if they do sell of the entire forest and have it cut down and replaced with recreation parks, provided the documentation shows the planning didn't begin until Jan 4, then again, he was telling the truth at the time.

For some reason it reminds of Bill Clinton's "technically we did not have sex" claims, or Tony Blairs' "The legal opinion was that we didn't need a second resolution". A statement which, from a legal perspective is honest, but means something entirely different at the time. We'll have to remember something similar the next time one of the team's drivers is caught in a compromising situation with a local MP up near the Forest of Dean.




This is why we not only support the Hood campaing, we propose a new slogan for the campaign " Fuck in the forest, not with the forest"