BBC: welcome to the goldfish bowl

A message hits the rarely-checked Bristol Traffic youtube inbox

Can you get in touch?

Hi there,

I'm a journalist at the BBC, we're running an item on cycling on tomorrow's breakfast programme on Radio Bristol and I'm keen to speak to someone who uses a little camera on top of their helmets to capture various goings on during their commutes.

Can you get in touch with me as soon as possible please?

Thanks,

Jonathan

This falls foul our "do not engage with the audience of bristol media channels" policy, so gets rejected

We only just saw the message, but we wouldn't be willing to take part anyway.

What we can do is point you at this video made while walking a bicycle over a zebra crossing on whiteladies road, where a car goes straight over the zebra crossing in front of the pedestrian and then they proceed into the BBC car park.

http://bristolcars.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/bbc-we-know-they-are-on-our-side.html

We saw the driver a few days later in the BBC radio van. If you recognise your colleague you may want to point them at the video and pass on the following message

"the western governments may be collaborating with google, yahoo, facebook &c to watch all our online activities & to record all that we do, but the monitoring infrastructure -phones and helmet cameras- is near ubiquitous, and google are happy to offer us use of their storage and computing services for nothing. The era of "getting away with something" is over.  Please consider that the next time you choose to drive over a zebra crossing while someone is walking over it.

http://bristolcars.blogspot.co.uk/2009/01/assault-on-liberty-continues.html

Important Warning

Here on St Michael's hill is a sign reminding us that this particular zebra crossing is in use.
 
We are lucky that such signs aren't up elsewhere in the city!

FirstBus joins our campaign against Zebra Crossings!

The zebra crossing wars on whiteladies road are hotting up. The bus companies had put together a proposal to make it harder to walk over the road -replacing some zebra crossings with pelican crossings, and here, by Oakfield Road, moving the crossing away from "the line of desire" and zig-zagging it so as to stop anyone with bicycle from using them. By discouraging walking and cycling, those people who don't have cars now have no reason not to use FirstBus, so will be a revenue stream.

Sadly, the troublemakers -and we know who they are- pushed back, and this crossing will remain as is. What can we do? Well, FirstBus knows what to do, it's pretend the crossing isn't there. The more people realise that buses will go straight through it, the less tempted they will be to use the routes.

Congratulations, then to WX06OMO, for showing strength of will and not even bothering to slow down for the person standing by their bicycle waiting to cross this junction.

The BBC: we know they are on our side

Lot's of fuss yesterday about whether the Cycle City program achieved its goals, with an oddly pro-bicycle program on the radio, while in print our opinions get covered, at least by the conservative party:

"Whilst we recognise the merits of promoting cycling as a leisure activity for the individual - delivering personal health benefits and helping to improve the environment for all - this form of travel is unlikely in the near future to be a major means of commuting.

We ourselves aren't convinced that it should be encouraged as a leisure activity if it slows down important people -and the same goes for walking. There could be designated "leisure areas" -call them parks- to which people could drive and try walking and cycling before driving home.

Like we say, we were a bit disappointed by the radio program, as it viewed the fact that the number of cyclists on the road to meet the ambitious goals of the city as "a failure". The fact that there are more now than ever before is what constitutes the failure in our eyes. It has legitimised cycling in some parts of the community.

We are surprised therefore that the BBC radio took such a pro cycling stance in the radio program, because they are uusally on our side. Top-Gear, Horizon documenting car crashes safety improvements without discussing the fact that some of the most expensive cars on sale have the worst pedestrian safety scores.

They are on our side for the following reason: they are important, so they drive to work. That means not stopping for anyone even walking a bicycle over a zebra crossing, here on Whiteladies Road, just by the BBC offices.

Note however, the driver of F59XHW doesn't drive down the bus lane before the left turn, it always indicate before turning. We would drive down the lane and then turn without indicating, and we think Jeremy Clarkson would too. Signalling communicates intent to the opposition.

More Whiteladies: The Oakfield Road crossing

Continuing our Whiteladies Road coverage, here is Oakfield Road, the zebra crossing by it, then the bus/bike lane leading up to the double parking area by the BBC. Note that when the Kingsdown RPZ is rolled out, the council will steal the double parking opportunities here, which will reduce the parking capacity of the street by about a third.

We've covered this crossing before, and yes, cars do often drive through without stopping. But today, its an inbound bike that goes through the crossing ignoring that outdated bit of the highway code that says you should stop for pedestrians. We don't agree with that law ourselves, so aren't going to criticise a bicycle for doing what we'd do, if only the van parked in the bus lane wasn't stopping us getting into that lane and doing the same trick.

Sunday Cyclists vs GN56FJA, RV10OBJ and RO57WFG

The trouble with a nice spring Sunday is the Sunday cyclists come out -with their kids attached. Unlike commuters, who know their place: the bottom, these militant parents have unrealistic beliefs.

First up Cotham Road, 14:15 on a Sunday Afternoon - GN56FJA is forced to aggressively overtake a bike which shouldn't be in the way.

It's not too dangerous, the oncoming golf doesn't even flash their lights -and they have given the bicycle lots of room. They even waited until the top of the hill had been cleared, so there was enough visibility to see the oncoming golf before pulling out. You wouldn't see such courtesy in London.

A short while later, probably 14:25, the tax dodging family are walking their bike across a zebra crossing on Pembroke Road. We love Pembroke Road -a fast alternative to Whiteladies Road, not a single light, speed camera, bus lane light or other feature to interfere with the sprint from Clifton to the Downs, apart from two Zebra crossings at the bottom. The woman driving RV10OBG -the first 2010 car in our database-, just had a different interpretation of the rules from the cyclist.


Yes, a car is required to give way to a pedestrian waiting to cross or on a zebra crossing -but what if there is an island? Once a traffic island appears, you can ignore the other lane, so they aren't on your bit of the zebra crossing. And as they aren't waiting to cross the zebra crossing -they are on it- that rule doesn't apply either.

Finally, at about 14:30, you can see why we really hate these people, when RO57WFG gets abuse from the parent purely because it turns straight over them while turning from Clifton Park to Clifton Down Road.



The parent and child were probably turning left, so there was no need to slow down or indicate -and this VW Touran was clearly in a hurry -because the man driving didn't indicate at the miniroundabout either. But he achieved his goal: got to the bridge first, where unlike the tax dodging family, the driver paid for the upkeep and the illumination of the bridge.

This shows that one single cyclist can, in the space of fifteen minutes, nearly cause three collisions. You can also hear a small child in the background asking questions about why the deranged parent is shouting registration numbers at the car. What kind of example is that? He will grow up to be one of those people who get banned from supermarkets for shouting at people.

Troublemakers and Zebra Crossings on Cotham Road

Spotted while parking the car up in the coaches-no-parking bit of Cotham Road during the school run, a group of people loitering around. By the entrance to two schools? Should we call the police?

No need, the headmaster of Cotham School has popped over, presumably to tell them the police are on their way.

But what's this? Smiling and happiness?

Turns out, these people are plotting together to get a zebra crossing put up here on Cotham Road, so that kids and parents can walk to school safely. One at the top, by the school entrances. This is so wrong. After you struggle on the commute up Cotham Brow, with its congestion and crossings, this road is somewhere to put your foot down and make up lost time. And now they want a crossing here?

What's worse, the councillors support it, and the councillor for the Cotham School side of the road, Neil Harrison, says he may have some money for the crossing. That our road-tax money, I bet.

The troublemakers -the Bristol Living Streets people, we believe - have a petition up for a zebra crossing and a build-out for bicycles! One that people are signing!

We are taking note of everyone who puts their name up there, we can assure you. A zebra crossing here, on top of St Michael's Hill, will not only make it possible for pedestrians to walk to any of the three schools nearby safely, they will encourage the students to walk, the residents to walk out to the shops and cafes, instead of driving. This will set back motoring in the area, just when the RPZ plans implied that the residents would get somewhere to park when they came back from the shops and cafes, while the school-run parents would have commuter-free parking areas.

Zoo transport

A late-breaking entry for the antibicycle awards, Bristol Zoo.

At first glance, you would think "what does the zoo do wrong, they have provided lots of bike racks". In fact we have a quote from Chris Hutt who thinks its excellent:

"There are two sets of 6 racks, so parking for 24 bicycles.
Can't complain about that." 

Given that Mr Hutt is the official complainer for the Bristol Cycling Campaign, the fact he isn't complaining about it is so unusual that it makes us suspicious. Was it a bribe? If so, how much?

There are two things odd with this picture. The light controlled pelican crossing of an important commuter route, and the strange cobbles on the pavement, just at the back wheel of the tagalong. Their cobbles' role can be a bit clearer from the other side, especially if we move the sign.

The two marked out rectangles on the pavement are in fact two of the very few disabled parking spaces in the zoo, and as they are the ones closest to the main entrance, very popular and in constant use weekends, bank holidays and throughout the summer. With two motor vehicles parked in these spaces, it is therefore impossible to park a bike with a trailer or a tagalong at any of the bike stands during peak zoo visit hours. If one were actually trying to encourage cycling to the zoo, this would be unfortunate, because nobody in their right minds goes to the zoo except with small children.

Anyone cycling would have to have some means of getting the children there, and by preventing trailers or tagalongs from using the facilities, the zoo can discourage anyone from cycling. All without troublemakers like Chris Hutt even suspecting, which makes it particularly amusing. How can the evening post run a controversy article on the zoo without any good quotes?

Well, this is where it gets fun, and where the real award nomination kicks in. The zoo doesn't want cyclists. In fact, it doesn't want any visitors to the city who don't come and park in the zoo's revenue-earning parking spaces. We know this, as they have written it down in their sustainability report. You see, there are some small problems with the zoo's plan to earn parking revenue from visitors

1. There isn't enough space in the zoo's parking space to make much money
2. The area nearby isn't resident parking, so visitors can and do park for free once the paid parking area is full

These are problems, but not insurmountable. The secret is the large unused wasteland nearby, often known as Durdham Downs. Part managed by the council, part owned by the Merchant Venturers, and somewhere we like because of its strong anti bicycle policy. Every path where a child may cycle has a big sign warning them off.

This leads to large amounts of empty space. Space that can be used. And what better use of open city parkland in the height of summer than providing parking for the zoo? It is a long standing arrangement that  at weekends and summers, currently gets turned into paid parking for the zoo.

There's a small problem with that -it's not clear that this is what was meant when the downs were to be kept for the people of the city "in perpetuity". This is why a year ago the Zoo was told that instead of this right to park here being a permanent feature, they had one year to come up with a plan.

They have had a year, and they have a plan. It is: park on the downs, add some signs.

This has taken some effort to pull off, and we will have to see what happens this week when the planning committee reviews it. What we are impressed by, however, is how the Zoo managed to hire some traffic consultants to produce a transport report which makes the case that allowing people to park on the downs is the most sustainable form of transit, all other options (walking, cycling, public transport) can be dismissed, and that Park and Ride isn't economic.

That's a good report. Read it.

First, they look at visitor traffic on a bank holiday

24%	Drove
67%	Passenger
2.6%	Walked or Cycled
3.8%	Bus
2.8%	Train or Train and bus

When you consider how many visitors they have on a bank holiday (hint, the Downs parking area has room for 600 cars), the fact that 2.6% managed to walk or cycle is pretty impressive. Presumably after the 12 bicycles parked with the child carrier poking into the main road, everyone else walked.

What is more surprising for us that nearly 7% used public transport, despite the surveyors choosing a bank holiday, the day in which all forms of public transport are at their least functional. Yet even by choosing a day when you are most likely to get visitors from outside the city, 7% used "legacy" public transport,  nearly three times the number who walked or cycled. Wow.

The surveyors, Pinnacle Transportation, to give them their credit, used this as evidence that driving was the only viable option, but because most people drove with family, it was sustainable. That's good. That legitimises us driving to school to do the sprog dropoff. Yes, it may only be 500 metres, yes we park on the school keep lines and half the pavement -but it's sustainable! We shall use that to dispute the next tickets we receive.

So, what to do? Pinnacle Transportation, whom we presume were well paid for their troubles, looked at the option for Park and Ride, and decided that it would cost too much as £1750/day. Why? First, P&R doesn't run at weekends, external visitors to the city on weekends are expected to drive in, so the zoo pays all P&R costs. That's £1450 a day. Secondly, the consultants estimate that adding P&R would reduce zoo parking revenue -on the Downs- by £300/day. That is: people choosing not to park on the downs are an expense.

That is beautiful, and it reinforces our beliefs that tax-dodging pedestrians and cyclists should be banned from the city. We've long argued they don't benefit central government's coffers, but this zoo transport report is the first time someone has spelled out that people who don't drive and park their cars on one of the city's parks cost money. If there is one fault, the report doesn't come out and denounce the 2.6% who walked or cycled, those who came by bus or train, or those who -worst of all- parked somewhere where it is free to park.

By marking down all lost parking revenue as an expense on the P+R, the transport plans can then say "too expensive". What they do propose instead is

1. Have a park and ride, but if it proves too expensive, stop it.
2. Provide better (permanent) signage to the Downs parking area for visitors

Option #1 may look good, but because of that offset-expense trick, the zoo knows that it won't be hard to make it look uneconomic, so it will die a death "we tried that, it didn't work". Instead the Downs parking area will remain, and with the better signage get even more visitors, because they won't get lost and accidentally park somewhere like Pembroke Road or College Road where it won't cost them anything. Which will make residents of those roads happy too.

Now, how does the Downs committee react? Let us look at the Nov 2009 meeting minutes. There's a fairly brutal submission from the Ramblers who argue that turning the downs over to parking is a fundamental abuse of the city's parkland, but what do they know? They may think that somewhere they like to walk is denied them -but nobody is stopping them from parking in the zoo parking area either. That leaves the "Friends of the Downs", who come out in favour not just of giving the Zoo the parking area they deserve, but making a rolling five year lease, which effectively means "forever". We are curious as to what the membership of the Friends group is, as one would, if one actually cared about the green stuff, be a bit concerned that they were more "Enemies of the Downs".

This then, is why the zoo is up for an antibicycle award. Not for the bike racks that don't actually work once there are some disabled visitors. But for the way they've managed to get the Downs friends and committee -the same people who spend so much of their paint budget on ensuring there is no safe way to cycle across most of the Downs.- to support the zoo's plans for 600-650 parking spaces there in high summer weekends and bank holidays, the dates when park visitors would be highest. That is, they have got these people to sell out the entire notion of park and replace it with parking. When you then look at the transport report, where the consultants argue, with a completely straight face, that having 600 cars drive to the city and park on the Downs is sustainable, that these people cannot walk or cycle, and that all lost parking revenue must constitute an expense for a park and ride scheme, well, it just rounds it off!

A history of pedestrian crossings

A site hosted by one of our local anti-car traffic planners, Hamilton-Baillie Associates, leads us to this fascinating article, Crossing the Road in Britain, 1931-1976.

• The 1930 Road Traffic Act removed the 30 mph speed limit. It was re-instated in 1934 even though pedestrian deaths had fallen.
• When Belisha Beacons first came out there was a campaign against them, the captain gatso of its day, and people used to throw stones at them to break them. This idea of campaigning against zebra crossings appeals to us, though we do like the fact they act as short-stay parking for shoppers.
• In 1934 the Daily Telegraph was running its anti-pedestrian campaign then, calling for punishment for bad/careless/dangerous walking, while the Daily Mail was complaining that the government was picking on the motorist.
  
• A national road safety foundation, the NSFA, strongly funded by the motoring companies, resisted needless government interference -driving licenses, 30 mph limits- and instead focused on educating children and pedestrians.
• Pedestrian barriers were put in in London to stop pedestrians crossing except at approved points. We thought they were there to keep bicycles in the kerb and take away our paveparking, but clearly not.
• The Times was campaigning against Zebra crossings way back in 1954. We thought our Zebras belong in Zoos campaign was innovative, but not only were we merely reflecting the ongoing activities of Bristol's drivers, the war against zebra crossings has been going on for over fifty years.
• Light controlled junctions (first, "panda" crossings) to keep pedestrians out our way went in the early 1960s, ever since then slow, unfit people have been whining about not getting enough time. Move faster! Isn't walking meant to keep you fit! You put your foot down when we rev our engines and sound our horns -so why wait until then!
  
• These panda crossings were like zebra x-ings with a red light too, a "stop" and a "really-stop" for cars, and pedestrians had to wait for a really stop bit to pull out.
  
• Later pelican crossings had the stop/really stop bit, the flashing lights phase. Originally it meant that pedestrians could still cross, but now its been changed to cars can get in gear then go, like the red-amber phase on traffic lights
  
• It was a socialist government, and Barbara Castle, that introduced motorway speed limits and brethalyzers -the big anti-driver laws of the 1960s.
  

It's a fascinating twenty page read to see the struggle to resist anti-car pedestrians -historically the poor and working class, now the over-educated elitists. Our backers have been the people who get things doe -the House of Lords, the police, the German and Italian fascist goverments (Germany did introduce a "careless walking" fine as well as building the A-Bahn's). It's also interesting to see how the Daily Mail and Telegraph haven't suddenly jumped on the bandwagon needs of us, the British Motorist, they have been supporting us for as long as they've been saying Oswald Mosely and Enoch Powell should be listened to.

It's a shame to see so many attempts to rein in the pedestrians have failed -we never knew about red-painted kerbs at £20 spot fines for pedestrians, but apparently this was tried in central london in 1966. Bring it back, we say! All that has gone in from those time is the separation strategy, pedestrian overpasses and underpasses.

We shall cover them soon, as our fellow-travellers the Association of British Drivers are trying to bring them back to the Bristol centre. Now we have better historical understanding of their origin we can put them in their context.

On thing on the final page of the article:

Policy innovations seem to have been inspired not by casualty figures or public outcry about them, but by two main factors : popular hostility towards, confusion about, or lack of observance of previous pedestrian crossings or road safety campaigns ; and the desire not to impede traffic flow as congestion in town centres worsened.

We say: exactly. Zebra crossings impede traffic flow, as do other pedestrians running around our streets.

Bristol Traffic announces a campaign against zebra crossings

A lot of people complain that all we ever do is take photos of cars parked badly and make fun of them. Well, we don't actually make fun of them -we are praising their innovative solutions of the problem of how to park in the city, now that the council has taken anti-car actions such as adding a new 5000 car car park in the centre purely for shoppers.

But we need to branch out, we need to raise the bar. And last week's coverage of Southmead shocked us. There were children: outside the house. Some of them on bicycles. None of them with helmets. Do they not know how dangerous this is?

The BBC coverage has shown us that we need to do more, so we have secretly stuck some cameras on pedestrians and cyclists round the city, and are seeing what it is like from their eyes. This does not mean that we support walking or cycling around the city, only that we want to see what it is the troublemakers are whining about. We will interpret the videos as we see fit, not what our undercover camera crew thinks.

Here is video #1, a pedestrian crossing whiteladies road at a zebra crossing.

As you can see, the red car CH51RLY decides that it is too important to stop for the pedestrian and instead decides to drive straight over the crossing, 5cm away from the pedestrian.

Is this wrong? Not at all! The driver clearly has to get to work, is probably tired and on the phone. Anyone would do the same thing.

It's not as if they are running red light or anything! We don't understand why these pedestrian rights groups are whining about cars endangering their right to cross roads safely. They have no such right!

And zebra crossings, just like traffic lights, create congestion. Imagine if the driver had had to stop here? an extra 15 seconds on their journey, right? Now scale that up to the number of zebra crossing and pelican crossing you might see on a commute in to work. At least ten more. That's three minutes of your commute time being spent waiting for pedestrians to toddle over. Of course the driver runs the lights -its the only way to keep the city moving.

For this reason, Bristol Traffic is pleased to announce our new Campaign against Zebra Crossings. Every zebra crossing in the city creates congestion. Every zebra crossing says to pedestrians "It's OK, you should walk round Bristol", leading them to walk round the city, eventually having to cross roads that don't have zebra crossings -getting into accidents, and blaming us, the car driver!

Join the Bristol Campaign Against Zebra Crossings today! We will print a manifesto in the week and ask all the parties and leading celebrities for their support! Sign up your support below!

Zebras belong in Zoos!