Dear Redland-based driver of Audi YS12ZPX

We've discussed before the concept of a "Redland Mum": a parent who is prepared to injure other road users in order to make sure that they get to school at pickup and dropoff time. It's why the ten minutes before the school gate close and open events are one of the hazardous times.

This video of a driver endangering a cyclist was taken at 15:00, in Redland, so meets many of the checklist items. You'd have to know their final destination to know if this was a genuine "Redland Mum school run", or just a "Redland Audi Driver in a hurry". We've included the letter the owner shall receive.

---

Dear Redland-based driver of Audi YS12ZPX

As promised, here's the video of you going by at a distance I didn't consider acceptable. And, as there was nobody oncoming to squeeze past, no justification at all other than selfish indifference.

Just because you are in a hurry does not justify endangering other Bristolians.

• All it would have taken would have been a small wobble on the bike for a collision. Which if it had occurred would have had adequate video recordings for any prosecution.
• The police are now cycling round the city, enforcing the 1.5m distance from the cyclist which they consider safe. "Careless Driving" is what they prosecute on, ~3 points and its impact on insurance premiums.
  
• Your actions reinforce the reputation that Audi drivers have for being selfish and dangerous.

You didn't even get anywhere, did you? You ended up at the traffic queue at the top of Redland hill. That's the one which is there every afternoon, so you should have been able to predict it.
Not only was I able to catch up, I had to wait at the zebra crossing for you to pull out.

Which comes round to the final point. Your actions were actually counterproductive, weren't they? An extra 50cm of clearance and you wouldn't have been held up at the crossing. Instead you were delayed when you clearly didn't want to be, and now have the video of your driving up online for all to see.

Please, give a little bit more clearance when you pass, maybe even be a bit more patient when trying to drive across the city. Dangerously passing someone just to get to the next traffic queue achieves nothing.

Stopping distances experiment #2: The real world

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who is to blame here?

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

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

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

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

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

WN15UKX beats the school run queues

It's term time in the city, a so the morning rush hour is worse, and we've seen the return of the mid-afternoon one, seen here.

In order to get anywhere, you need "flexible and imaginative solutions" as our Brexit negotiators say.


Here the driver of WN15UKX finds it impossible to make progress without risking their wing mirrors.

Residents of the inner city know that having wing mirrors is a sign of weakness, but here the driver of WN15 UKX isn't going to let the fact they value their bodywork slow them down. Instead, a neat little nip up onto the pavement, a quick sprint at 14 mph down the pavement and they are on their way. Maybe he was late for child pickup. Because you wouldn't want your child to walk home: it isn't safe, not even on the pavements.

Its drivers like this which give us selfish wanker BMW owners a bad reputation.

The spectator discovers sectarian Bristol

Once every 18 months, the Spectator magazine covers Bristol with an article. This is something we residents we have on our "things to look forward to" list somewhere between "Shopping in Asda Bemmy on a Saturday" and "getting stuck on the M4 because there's a rugby match scheduled to start in Cardiff soon".

This year we are blessed with many opportunities to get stuck on the M4. We are also graced with the latest spectator article, Bristol, the European capital of green nannying and bureaucracy.

Here are the opening three paragraphs:

I am stuck behind a big yellow recycling lorry in Bristol, which this year became the UK’s first European Green Capital. It is collecting food waste from the special brown bins we have to use, and the stench is horrendous. Behind me are about another dozen cars and, sad to say, I fear that not all of them have turned off their idling engines.  

Squadrons of recycling vehicles invade every day, blocking our narrow Victorian streets and causing misery and mayhem — starting with the school run: ‘Dad! I’m going to be marked down for a “late” again!’ ‘Sorry son, but these teabags mustn’t be allowed to rot in landfill. And besides, we have our city’s green status to consider!’ 

I am not against recycling — just the extreme methodology the city has adopted. Bristol is now so over-the-top with it all that bin day involves five or more different bins collected by three separate diesel–powered lorries. And I have a theory about why these mobile compost heaps insist on working through the morning rush hour: it is all about our city’s war on the car.

Mr Miserable then actually goes on to make the point that Bristol has gone from being the city of ganja and Trip-hop to one of painted road regulations, blaming "green city europe" for it. Well, he may have a point. Certainly there is a visible split between those people who were happy with "The way thing were" and the progressives,. The "way things were" brigade are still sulking over the (last) rework of The Centre, the loss of the rickety flyover, and probably even the loss of the road over College Green. Notice how roads are the key source of resentment. Similarly the progressives are full of hope that with an RPZ and 20 mph limit all those people sulking about stolen roundabouts will suddenly choose to cycle happily to work.  Well, the sulkers won't be doing that out of ideological reasons, even if their GP says they need to do it for their emergent Coronary Heart Disease and Type II Diabetes.

Ironically, both groups have lots in common: they all think Bristol being "european green city" is taking the piss, and that Metrobus is a disaster in the making. Nobody anywhere can be found to defend Metrobus except bus companies, and the engineers in WoEP who find designing continuous bike routes too boring to bother with.

Anyway, on a standard of the Spectator's usual coverage, no worse than usual, and it doesn't laugh at us rural folk who live outside the Home Counties.

What is irritating though, is the whole theme of those quoted paragraphs. He has spent a fifth of his article citing being stuck behind a bin van on the school run with the other parents as evidence for the council's "war on the car". That's it: stuck behind a bin van.

Now, nobody likes being stuck behind the rubbish or recycling lorries, but here is a key aspect of them:

they come on the same day every week

Admittedly, whether it's a brown and recycle week or a black-bins-too week is a mystery to all, but that is addressed, as everyone does, by sticking them all out on the street. Any that don't get collected can be left there for the following week. Because, as noted, they will be back exactly seven days later, except around Christmas and New Year -but there, as a gift to the parents, the council allows them to take off three weeks worth of school run, so the schedule is irrelevant.

Because bin day is so regular, you soon learn which days the lorries come out on the rat-runs between your home and school, which means remembering the 1-2 days a week when you have kick your child out of bed a bit earlier and say "we need to go to school now, get up you lazy bastard".

But no, clearly Anthony Whitehead never remembers to do this on the morning after he (hopefully) helped stick the bins out. Which implies its more a war on "lazy and forgetful parents".

Having failed to learn a useful strategy for avoiding being late one day a week "get out of the door 10 minutes early on bin day", he is instead stuck in a line of cars trying to compose his magazine article.

This is where he makes his second fatal mistake. At the moment he realised that he was blocked in, and that he wasn't going to get the child to school in time, instead of foaming off at the council or writing an article for the Spectator, he should have put the handbrake on, turned round to the child and said "get out of the car and walk from here".

Because that is the real split in the city; those who drive their kids to school and those who don't. For a parent driving their child in to suddenly say "get out and walk" is as unthinkable as anyone who works in Clifton using public transport to get there.

Yet still the council tries to force families to walk their kids to school. And it's a war that's been going on for decades

Here is a shocking video showing hordes of children forced to walk to school -even those whose parents are important and own more than one car.



Listen to their happy laughs over the birdsong! Look to how their irresponsible parents let them scoot ahead to the next junction, rather than holding them tightly by the hand on the dangerous journey from the front door to the back seat of their Euro-6 certified crossover SUV. Note the road closures from Ninetree Hill to Freemantle Square, and the later one just before Colston School -and see how they have killed off the traffic-flow-enhancing through traffic. Observe the near-complete lack of traffic apart from a white builder's van, en route to a wage-earning job, one car going up Cotham Brow and a bus.. Note specifically, the presence of RPZ paintwork in the Kingsdown and Cotham North zones are preventing any of the workers Bristol depends on from driving round in circles until they can see a free corner to park on.

All these children are being deprived of the opportunity to snapchat their friends from the back of Crossover SUVs stuck behind bin lorries! All their parents are deprived the opportunity to show off the size and ostentatiousness of their land-barges, hence provide any form of visible wealth to indicate the social status of their offspring! You can't see who is poor and who can afford a car! And long term -these children will grow up as yet unable to grasp the core tenant of Bristol: you need a car to get on.

HD06NZY texting school runner

You can spot a car when the driver is texting. Rather than pootle along with the car in front, they leave a gap, then, when they look up and see it, finally jerk forwards, before repeating the manoeuvre one SMS interval later.

Here you can see HD06NZY doing precisely this in the oncoming lane, a queue on Cotham Road to get to the roundabout which is blocked by school parents.



It being school run time, our expendable reporter opted to turn round and ask them to stop it. As you can see, they're a school running parent themselves. Presumably one of those parents who thinks it is too dangerous for their kid to ever walk or cycle to school -so instead they drive. And as anyone who ever has to do that school run by car in Bristol will know: its not fun. It's slow and boring. Hence the need to do something other than talk to a small child in the back.

The mum doesn't seem too happy about the other school parent telling her off. It's bad enough having to sit in a traffic jam without having some sanctimonious tax-dodger complaining that they are endangering all children trying to walk or cycle to school. People like that should,

If those parents who let their children walk or cycle to school really loved their children, they'd drive them to school. It's too dangerous to do anything else!

A&S Police: this is not a crime. Move along now

Some people ask if a 20 mph speed limit is bringing the city to its knees. The answer is no: all you have to do is overtake any car driving too slow for you

The driver of L861CDW demonstrates the correct way to do this, overtaking the Fiat 500 which had slowed down to let a school-running family, a family signalling to turn right.




We aren't going embed it as there is a lot of swearing at the point when the cyclist thinks they are about to get hit by the car. 

If you see the discussion afterwards, the driver runs over the cyclists foot (so they assert), and state this to the driver, who looks back and just swears.

After going to A&E that evening to make sure that their foot was not broken, the parent visited the police, who, after taking a statement and a copy of the video, went to the driver and got his statement

1. The driver of L861CDW overtook the Fiat 500 because he felt it was going too slowly.
2. At the time he started to overtake, he had not seen the cycling family.
3. He did see the cyclists during the overtake, but chose to continue as they were not actually turning.
4. He asserts that if they had been turning, he would have given way to them. This is not an assertion that can be tested, of course.
5. Apparently the driver felt intimidated by the cyclist going "why are you trying to kill me and my family?"
6. Apparently the cyclist damaged the wing mirror of the car as the driver drove off in terror. As he works in the motor industry -runs his own garage- he fixed this himself and is not going to bill the cyclist.
7. The reason for the driver swearing at the cyclist is not because the cyclist just told them that they'd driven over their foot -it merely looks like that in the video. In fact the driver was unaware that he'd done such a thing, therefore "failure to stop and report an accident" does not arise.

As result of his statement, in combination with the hi-definition head-cam video, the police are not going to prosecute the driver for careless driving or any other offence. 

There is not, apparently sufficient evidence that he meets the legal standard of "driving without due care and attention"

If the family had actually been turning, and the driver had failed to give way to us -that is hit them- it would have constituted careless driving and he would have been prosecuted. But the driving seen on the video is not sufficient.

Furthermore, the cyclist swearing at the car as he thinks that he and his son is about to get run over does not put the cyclist in a good light. This means that any claim "they drove off as they felt intimidated" is defensible, even when that driving off includes over the feet of the cyclists.

Lessons for drivers

1. If you are driving in a 20 mph zone, it is acceptable to overtake cars going at a speed you consider too slow.
2. Even if you cannot see more than one vehicle in front of you, the overtake does not constitute "careless"
3. And during the overtake, even if you see that you misjudged what was in front, you can continue with the manoeuvre -provided you don't actually hit anyone in front.

As for the cyclist

1. Even if you are about to get run over, don't swear at the driver.
2. If you follow up a near-hit with the driver, don 't ask intimidating questions like "why are you trying to kill me and my family". As something more subtle and polite.
3. If someone drives over your foot, do make sure you get that on camera too.

It also has some interesting implications:

1. It shows that either it is police policy or the legal system, but videos of driving like this are not considered sufficient for A&S  Police to prosecute the driver for careless driving or other offences. 
2. Cyclists in Bristol may as well give up on the head cameras if they expect it to fulfil any role other than be entertainment for others, or use in an inquest.

This is a dead cycle lane. No its not, its a norwegian blue.

One aspect of the Cycling City program was the way they used Showcase Bus Routes as part of the plan







as you can see, it means that on a friday evening people have a cycle lane to follow on whiteladies road

It's not a particularly great cycle lane, but with the bus lane downhill and road widening out further up, this metre or so of paint does say "bicycles can go here". For anyone thinking "why not take the lane", on a friday evening that lane is stationary traffic. On a day when there is moving traffic, most people aren't going to be fit enough to keep with the flow all the way up the hill.

this bike lane, is important.

But not, apparently, as important as a buildout "for pedestrian safety"



This little build-out popped up without any warning, no consultation on the council web site, apparently no discussion in the bike forums, nothing.

Why has it gone up? Part of the "safe routes to school" work to the new St Johns school campus; This is the one where last year Skanska proposed making lower redland road a one-way route and stopping cyclists from contraflowing as their safe-school-run plan.

That plan got killed, but whoever wanted to do it must have been bearing a grudge, as they have effectively managed to knife the Whiteladies road cycle route instead, giving you a whole 50cm of rough tarmac and slippery paint between the pavement and the large buses.

This is not a cycle lane! It is dead!

No doubt the council will argue it is "resting", that it is a "norwegian blue" cycle lane. We know different -this buildout has killed it. The cycle team needs to admit this, and on next year's cycle maps remove the "dedicated cycle lane" from this stretch of whiteladies road. To pretend it is still there is to be the pet-shop owner in the dead parrot sketch.

There's just one little thing we have to ask of whoever designed this. Not: did you know that there was a cycle lane there before you came up with your plan? Not: how did you manage to get this in without the cycle team noticing? Not even "how do manage to bypass the entire council consultation process"?

No its: how does slightly widening the pavement make crossing an A-Road at peak hours a safe route to school?

Uphill and downhill there are pelican crossings, the whiteladies gate one being very popular on the school run. Here, for example, is a video of people waiting to cross it when, as it goes red, a volvo school-running parent goes through it uphill (note the pedestrian to the left of the camera shaking her head in disbelief -she mustn't get out much), while the driver of the car coming downhill is too busy on the phone to do the same.



This shows that you can't safely cross whiteladies road on a weekday morning on a light-controlled or zebra crossing without expecting vehicles to cut you up. That doesn't even include the (sadly not on video) incident involving a school running Volvo dad driving over the wrong side of the oakfield road crossing traffic island. These crossings, despite their white lines and red lights are not safe to cross.

Which is why we stare at these roadworks in disbelief. Not because we care about the cyclists -they are clearly unimportant. But in complete disbelief that whoever built this thought it would make trying to walk two kids across two lanes of rush hour traffic is a safe route to school.

Because all the pinch point is doing is stopping bicycles coming up the hill at 4 mph from hitting the push chair -it does nothing for the cars and buses that are likely to cause more damage to the children.

Which means that it is utterly useless. It is not just a a dead cycle lane, it is a dead pedestrian crossing too

Anti-RPZ myth: an RPZ makes the school run harder

With years of data, Bristol Traffic can go back in time and look at problems before the RPZ was rolled out -and compare it with today. This is why when people say "RPZ makes school runs worse", we have to say "you are joking, right?"

The RPZ will make the school run easier, whether it is by car, foot or even bicycle.
Here are some reference points as to the existing problem.

Cotham Road, where the sole drop-off point free on a weekday was a bus-only area where you would sporadically get ticketed.



Parents who drove had no option to park anywhere else -as there wasn't anywhere else. Ticketing was
always a risk -and with only room for four cars, contention with other parents. When the buses turned up -they'd double park, selfishly, not only blocking you in, but creating traffic jams inconveniencing other school runners.

T
Colston Primary School, where the only parking spaces were on the corners -where your car could get scratched by push chairs.


There was that and the yellow "keep free" area. As everyone knows, the keep free area means "keep free for parents", but now the council has a CCTV car doing drivebys, you can't use them for that.

That was before. Now look at exactly the same corner, now that the RPZ has been rolled out


So much space for dropoff and pickup, that those parents who walk or cycle don't give you a hard time for driving to school.

In the mornings, the RPZ restrictions only kick in at 09:00. As residents leave, their spaces where historically taken up by commuters. As that no longer happens, that frees up spaces for parents to park.
When coupled with the fact that there is now parking near their houses, even people who live in the city without a driveway can take their kids to school and get home again. Nobody should have any excuse for not driving their children to school




In the afternoons, those spaces are still there for pickup. Yes, the zone is still live, but you get 15 minutes of free parking (soon to be 30). No doubt somebody will say "only 15 minutes of parking before you get a ticket" -but you never even used to get that 15 minutes, as there was never anywhere to park where you weren't at risk of ticketing. And look at how much space there is -you don't have to worry about not finding a space.

As well as the extra parking spaces, morning and night, here are some other benefits

1. A reduction in commuter traffic will reduce congestion during peak am school run times.
2. The bicyclists can keep out the way when you are in a rush.
3. No double parked parents by other schools you need to get past en route to your children's.
4.  

Together, this should reduce journey times and parental stress, reducing redland-mum incidents,  where a "redland mum" is defined as: anyone who is prepared to kill or inure anyone else in the city if the alternative is to drop their kids off at school late.

Again, then, the fact that the RPZ will improve life for residents trying to drive round the city -here the essential school run- that it is leading us to suspect that the anti-RPZ campaigners are in fact cyclists who are trying to keep driving round the city so miserable that people will want to cycle instead.

We will resist the tyranny of the bike lobby! We need to embrace the Resident Parking Zones for what they really are: Resident Driving Zones.

Forward Thinking.

At last this blog appears to have been noticed.

Not in Bristol, where the council still pretends to be cycle friendly, but by Surrey County Council, who take driving very seriously... especially the school run...

"Following a parent-governor meeting at North Downs Primary School last Thursday, headteacher Angela Ewing said its Betchworth and Leigh bases would be "driving only" from September."

You can read the full details here:

http://www.thisissurreytoday.co.uk/Children-banned-walking-cycling-North-Downs/story-18210883-detail/story.html#axzz2LjiOOIIt

We admire this school. Pro car, anti-cycling or walking. THIS IS THE FUTURE! And all because they took notice of Bristol Traffic. Also we salute the fact that, across the country, Councils pay £700 million each year to pay for Taxis to take children to and from School. This is a fantastic introduction to Public Transport, and whilst taxis are only for poor people, at least they look like cars, not those hideous buses that get in our way.

2WD Drivers -please get the 4x4 out for the school run today

Following on our advice to pedestrians and cyclists, we have one more

A lot people are still driving their small cars to school and work, creating needless traffic jams for important people. Here on Whiteladies road you can see this.
 
This traffic jam is making it hard for us to complete our Clifton school runs -and so feel smug about spending an extra £1500 on a vehicle with awful fuel economy. They are also hard to park -which is why Clifton so desperately needs more parking.

This morning you can see that pedestrians who ignored our advice to stay at home are holding a 2WD up Whiteladies Gate, slowing down a Landrover.
 

At the top of Cotham Hill, we can see more 2WD cars in trouble -with a pedestrian making it harder to clear the junction, so endangering themselves as these vehicles struggle to get through.


Please can all drivers leave the round-town runabouts at home and get the big cars out today -you know you deserve it.

Cyclists -think before you walk round the city

Just as we think pedestrians should stay at home, we think cyclists should question their journeys
 
they won't be cycling -they'll be walking -and in doing so, selfishly, making traffic worse.

  
It's not safe and you know it -why else would you be cycling.

The cyclist above is not only endangering themselves, they are still trying to get their son to school -a child who is being endangered by being forced to walk in the road.

Be like the owners of these bicycles: have a day off
  

Shocking school run photos

we must denounce the people who have a two-child tagalong to tow their children to school

 
Not only does it start to make the children think that there was an alternative to sitting in a car every morning, their parents are actually permitting the children to sit on the bicycle without putting their helmets on.

Neither of the children are wearing any hi-viz.

We are pretty confident that these kids are in the 47% who pay no tax whatsoever.

The plebs of Stokes Croft

The shocking thing about plebgate is not that a Tory MP called the police plebs, but that the police failed to arrest him while shouting "you are a pleb" -because irrespective of what school he went to, he was on a bicycle and should know his place.

We are also shocked by the many such plebs cycling round Stokes Croft this morning.
Whole families going down the road itself.

At the base of nine tree hill, families pulling over to buy their children baked snacks & sandwiches, while others use the new contraflow to get onto the croft itself.

Looking up the hill, a row of pedestrians, many dismounted cyclists on account of the 20% gradient.

One such dismounted cyclist was on the phone, even while a small child was on the back of the bicycle.

Where are the police when you need them?

The R242AAC incident: the outcome

There's an article in the Independents aying "Helmet Cameras are useless and the police can't do anything with the videos". Sadly we fear this is untrue: the police can prosecute drivers with the videos -if they choose to do so. The fact that most of the country hasn't seen any such prosecutions is due to the police, not the law.

Sadly, because Bristol police do intervene. Here is the sentencing letter from a small incident in which the car R242AAC forgot to give way to cyclists on a roundabout. We have covered this here and here.


 

Case against Anthony Butterworth, 

I am writing to let you know what has happened in this case in which you are a witness.

At the hearing on 30th December 2011 at North Avon Magistrates Court, Anthony Butterworth pleaded guilty to the following charges:

• Drive a mechanically propelled vehicle on a road/in a public place without due care and attention.

Anthony Butterworth was sentenced as follows

• To pay £375 fine

• Victim surcharge £15

• To pay £35 costs

• Given 5 penalty points.

...etc.

Five penalty points merely for nearly running two cyclists over? It's that -and the impact on the driver's insurance that hurts.

As a reminder, here is the incident in question:



Admittedly, he did pull straight out onto the roundabout without looking, but it was a quiet bank holiday. He had no reason to expect people to be on bicycles at that time in the morning.

The war on the motorists will not be over while the police are using helmet camera videos to impose fines and penalty points on law-abiding motorists!

We actually spoke to the parent who made the video, and got this statement:

"I am pleased that finally this driver was punished for their actions. The police and Jon Rogers were very supportive all through this process -going to a lot of effort to track down and prosecute the driver. I would like to thank everyone involved.

As you can see from the video, my son was wearing a helmet, and he has taken part in the council-backed cycling courses, which instruct children how to cycle safely in our city. 

As you can also see, this does nothing to address the fact that some drivers are selfish and dangerous. You can tell people what the safe position for vehicular cycling is, but unless the drivers look -or care that you are there-, you are still in danger.

The next time someone tries to argue that vehicular cycling is the right approach, that safety in numbers is the answer -and dutch style cycling paths a mistake -point them at this video and say "how could these people have cycled more safely?"

Well, they have the right to their opinions, no matter how misguided they are. We just close with the thought that a police force enforcing laws against motorists for such minor infractions of traffic laws could be one of the most  dangerous parts of a cycling city.

Planning the School Run

Driving our van around Bristol we've noticed that the biggest problem for school run mums is pesky cyclists jumping red lights and riding on pavements.

We're really pleased therefore, that the extension to St John's Primary School, using Redland Police Station as an Annex will stamp out these tax dodgers - well at least in one direction.

Bristol's PFI schools provider, Skanska, has submitted a fantastic planning application for the Annex which will eliminate the connection between Whiteladies Road and Elgin Park for cyclists travelling from East to West. We've been wondering for some time whether responsible, sustainably oriented international corporates such as Skanska read Bristol Traffic and take our comments to heart. Now we know. At last there is a scheme which will allow responsible urban four wheel drivers to take their children to school by car without even having to run a cyclist off the road - because there won't be any. Better still, there will be lots of space for lorries to get down past the school after making deliveries to Tesco and others on the corner of Whiteladies Road.

What is really interesting about this scheme is that by denying cyclists a sensible route from Redland to the main shopping area of Whiteladies Road, we could be taking them off the road for good. Then maybe they will see the light and buy proper cars and pay for the roads like the rest of us.

Any foolish cyclists that remain after these proposals are given planning permission will be forced to go up a very steep hill instead (that'll teach them), or negotiate some difficult right turns where we expect they will be knocked off their bikes. The exact proposals are below, but the planning application can also be can be viewed online

Skanska is proposing a brilliant solution for the motorist. We'll be recommending them to the Association of British Drivers if they ask us if we know a good builder.

Colston School declares more war on parents

No sooner had we issued a call for more low-quality pictures than one reaches our inbox from "M", showing how Colston's Primary School is persecuting parents.

It's bad enough they have bicycle parking in the playground, now they have a large sign in front of the keep clear zone.

Welcome to Colston's Primary School

Around our school please drive safely

DROP THE 'DROP OFF' HABIT

The yellow lines protect our children. Stay off them!

Irresponsible parking endangers our

children's lives and is reported to the police.

Ignoring the fact that when you push your child out the door while keeping the engine on in neutral and not even bothering to put the handbrake on isn't technically parking -just unloading -it is needless persecution.

We look back fondly on how it used to be, when small children could get views of motor cars that they could aspire to own in later years.

It was only back in 2008 that we started documenting our city, and today we must mourn the many parking spaces removed for build-outs and bike parking -and now, even School Keep Clear zones are taken from us.

Camera Enforcement Vehicle: Bristol declares war on school parents

"Camera Enforcement Vehicle". An odd term. It has a hint of Mad Max's "Interceptor", back in the days when Mel Gibson did half-decent films. In Mad Max, the interceptor existed to catch criminals threatening the streets and the safety of citizens.

We are sure that the council thinks their Enforcement Vehicle is there for the same goal, but we know what it has done: it has declared war on hardworking school parents who have nowhere to park their 4x4 for child dropoff except in the School Keep Clear lanes.

Today: when you see the traffic officers outside the school you know to drive pass, take the five minute hit on child dropoff to avoid the ticket. Once they've been and gone, that's it for the term. Safe. But not now.

Look at this car  R009OVT. It's got a camera on top, a GPS unit lurking inside. Now all it has to do is drive past a school and it can take a photograph of all the parents parked in the parent-parking-zone, then send them tickets later. Because it can do drive-by ticketing, it can cover multiple schools in a day -increasing the risk of getting caught. And you don't get any warning, you won't know to detour on the dropoff that day. After the dropoff: uncertainty. Did they pick on you today?

Worse yet the ANPR school parking car is not just targeting school zigzags, but also anyone stopping in a bus stop. Is it really so bad for people to have to get off the bus in the middle of the road? If people are worried about safety then the bus driver could simply drive on to the next stop (as they are apparently officially expected to do)!

They are enforcing loading restrictions, so stopping legitimate traders like Tesco from stopping their vans outside shops during rush hour. What sort of priority does Bristol put on the economy?

Even worse: the Evening Post isn't on our side here. They have joined the War against Motorists, in the same week the evil anti-car EU bumped up fuel prices by declaring an oil embargo against Iran. This is just victimisation

There's only one way to defeat this: stand firm.

Make sure nobody from your kids school calls Parking Services on 0117 922 2198 giving them the school location and exact time morning and evening when they would catch the most parents on a drive by.

Similarly, make sure they don't email parking.services at bristol.gov.uk giving them the same details, or telling them of your favourite secret bus-stop short-stay parking areas.

If nobody tells them of the places and times they should be enforcing parking at schools or in bus stops -we will continue to be able to exercise our right to do so!

Big Hello to R242AAC: roundabout jumper

We've had this video for a while, but been keeping quiet about it. Why? because there is a limit of six months for charging anyone for any dangerous driving/careless driving offence, and this driver has been successfully avoiding all attempts by the police to contact him. While that creates a new offence, "failing to report who was driving at the time an offence was committed", again, that has a limit.

This is profound. It means if you can hide for long enough, you can even get away with nearly running over a family at a roundabout.

The video and email came to us from "S":

I have a video of a near miss by a car that failed to stop for me and my nine year old son at a roundabout.

We are cycling up Cotham Road, about to go down over the roundabout to Cotham Hill. Cotham Road is calmer now the zebra crossing is in, and as you can see, the few cars passing on the bank holiday gives my son a wide berth, which is appreciated.

As we approach the roundabout, at 08:00 on 29 of April, I get my son in the correct place to go over, check that nothing is pulling out and we set off. I can hear the sound of a car approaching from the left, from St Michael's Hill, so I warn my son that this this car on the left is the next hazard we are going to worry about -as you can hear in the commentary.

As we get partway over, I pull ahead of my son, to make sure the approach car sees us slows down in good time.

However, instead of looking, instead of slowing down, this car pulls straight out onto the mini roundabout. If I had been about 50cm further ahead, I would have been hit, and if my son had been about 1.5m ahead of where he was, he would have been hit.

The car registration was R242AAC, I repeat this phonetically multiple times after the incident, along with the date and time, and at 1:12 in the video you can see the registration number, along with the Honda logo and the Accord model name.

The driver was a white male, with -I believe -brownish hair. He saw me and waved mildly apologetically as he continues through the junction without slowing down, continuing down Hampton Road. I follow him briefly enough to confirm the registration number, then turn back to see my son.

We are impressed not just by the driver's bravery in pulling out on what can be a busy roundabout without looking, but in their successful attempt to avoid what are apparently repeated attempts by the police to contact the driver, as with a video like this it would be pretty hard to deny your car was there.

We hope that nobody in the Bristol Area manages to spot this dark blue Honda Accord registration number R242AAC, that is R242 AAC and then immediately contacts the Avon and Somerset police on the phone number 101. All readers of this blog must keep an eye out for this car and make sure there are no cyclists in the area, to defend this bold driver from the menace caused by militant troublemakers who video their journeys round the city and complain about such minor things like nearly being killed.

The fact that if you hide for six months you can avoid prosecution is a new one to us. We look forward to using that technique ourselves in the near future.

Christchurch school, Clifton -no yellow lines here, yet!

While looking for places where yellow lines can be removed from Clifton "for traffic calming", we say, with a knowing smirk, we are pleased to see that the roads by Christchurch School, Clifton, as seen here at 08:30 on a schoolday, have no such problem

Residents are free to park on the pavement without fear of harassment.

So can parents who were forced to drive here early due to the congestion problems caused by a city that failed to provide a city-wide motorway scheme like Glasgow. This family is stuck waiting 15 minutes for the playground to open, so have no choice but to park here. It would be dangerous to let the kids out to play on the pavement.

Now: the bad news. The council is proposing putting some parking restrictions in. No worry though -as our coverage of other schools in the area will show, it's completely unenforced, so provides a lovely parental drop-off zone -provided there aren't any pedestrians in the way. The careful parking of residents and parents alike here ensure that there are no schoolkids on the pavement. That said, the school has just won a Sustrans Award. That was for the kids, not the parents or residents, obviously.

Montpelier: is our work done?

Youtube referred us to this (nonembeddable) video of an eight year old doing the school run by bicycle from York Road to Colston Primary School.

01:32 P232YEU. Seen them.
03:46 Eagle Coaches coach waiting in the bus lane. Seen them.
04:45 Family walking across the road. Seen them too.

When even independent videos include content that we already have on our web site, we can conclude that our attempts to build a mass-surveillance infrastructure out of google's datacentre facilities and community contributions are successful. At least for Montpelier, Stokes Croft, Cheltenham Road and bits nearby.

Does this mean it is time to retire: Our work is done? Maybe. But first, time to visit some other parts of the city.

Welcome to Clifton Week at Bristol Traffic!