Empty Threats

A sign on Colston Street, in the secret off-road parking bays

Please do not park here on the pavement

Building Maintenance work is in progress and access is required at all times.

Please be aware

your vehicle may be removed by the police for illegally parking on the pavement.

We, the people of Bristol, will resist such war-on-motorist threats to remove our right to park on a pavement.
 
We, N685LRT and DF09DVP do not fear!

Welcome Back

Bristol is a University City. In fact we have two of them.
Bristol is a Universities City!

So it's great to welcome back our important student population at this time of year.

Of course, to achieve a place at any University you need hard work, intelligence and determination. And probably parents with the same qualities, but we'll let that debate simmer in the main-stream press.

Here we see what could be intelligent students arriving (or possibly retuning), helped out by their intelligent parents (we refer to the cars, not the residents of Clifton navigating a route between them).

How do we know this?

Well, it's because of their amazing assimilation of Bristol's unique parking rules within hours of arriving in the City. Yes, the cars may sport number plates such as CE08WZC and CA09OKD, both apparently purchased in Llandow (that's in Wales, for those of you who failed Geography GCSE), but the entire family have worked out, within minutes of arriving, that:

1. In Bristol pavement parking is the norm.

and

2. In Bristol parking on Zig-Zags is the norm. Even within spitting distance of a local Police Station, and for ages (check the exif time flags of the photos if you like - I managed to eat Tiger Prawns and consume a pint between clicks). The synchronised hazard warning lights are a neat trick, too.

We welcome this fresh influx of intelligencia to our flock, and encourage them to use our cycle lanes for parking, our pavements for parking, and our Downs for parking.

Remember, these students are the makers and shakers of the future - we ignore them at our peril. Thank goodness they didn't turn up here with bicycles.

WOT madness

Thank goodness the road in Westbury on Trym has been resurfaced. The potholes were getting to the point where vehicles were almost having to slow down. WOT is actually a major traffic roundabout with added benefits of shops and cash machines easily accessible thanks to the re-painted double yellow lines and zig zags showing where it is convenient to park.

Here is the best parking bit where the council have deliberately shortened the zig zags after the pedestrian crossing on one side of the road so that convenient double yellow parking can take place. As this TNT van DU56PLN demonstrates.

But this local shopping and parking utopia is being threatened by anarchist hippies Sustainable Westbury-on-Trym who are part of the ominous Transition Bristol and they want to close off half of the road to vehicles. You will still be able to drive in every direction but no longer will there be a scenic roundabout to circle whilst finding a nice spot to stop. The reduction of such a wide road will inevitably mean less space to hazard-light park for that important minute or two to top up your mobile phone at the cash machine or pick up a donut at the bakery. Local businesses will be devastated.

Hidden in the proposals also are a proposal to reduce the speed limit to 20 mph, making a mockery of the council’s resurfacing efforts. It must be stopped!

Local Parking

Gloucester Road, Pigsty Hill, call it what you like. It's got Local Shops for Local People.

And local people know where to park for free, even on busy days.

KV04MWE may not originally be from around these parts, but shows us where to park if you need some asparagus, or a punnet of strawberries.

Here we see an obviously more local car, WV06LYZ, correctly positioned to interact with the community, taking up less space on the road, and generally being more considerate whilst it's driver partakes in a leisurely latte with friends.

Almost continental.

Bristol zebra crossing chic

Now that the weather is warm, you can wear summer dresses to park on the zig-zags by zebra crossings, as modelled here on Cotham Road South by the driver of VN59GCH.

This photo also emphasises why we think the council plans to put bike parking on the paid parking by the university is better than the alternatives. Imagine how much worse it would be if they'd replaced the zig-zags where build-outs bike parking on them? Zebra crossing zig-zags are the only short stay parking areas left in the city centre where you don't have to pay anything.

Tolerance

Contrary to public opinion and the comments pages of the Bristol Evening Post, it appears we are not a tolerant society.

Here we see a poor motorist occupying the cycle lane on College Green. With a flat tyre.

Notice how both he and the car V638HAA are effectively blocking the entire cycle lane, in both directions whilst the driver texts someone important. It seems he's not about to move out of the way for an intolerant cyclist that happens to be remonstrating with him for parking here.

This is obviously an inconsiderate cyclist. After all, he could easily have dismounted and walked his bike around the obstruction instead of making a fuss.

Luckily the cyclist eventually manages to squeeze past and calm returns. But only for so long.

In the half an hour that it takes to buy and learn to ride a fixed wheel bike on the pavement, the RAC van VN09GNN turned up to the rescue. Parked half on the cycle lane, and half on the zig-zags the driver is being very considerate to the drivers about to power up Park Street. But ignore that, cycling on pavements is wrong.

We don't approve of cycling on pavements, because we're not very tolerant. Yes cyclists may be able repair a flat tyre on the go, but changing a wheel on a car is a difficult and challenging process for a driver and requires the use of an Emergency Service.

So we had a word with all the cyclists trying get around the obstruction by cycling on the pavement.

We made them walk and be tolerant of pedestrians. We're drivers, and we have clout.

Secret Colston Street/Colston Hall Parking

People always come to our site searching for secret parking tips, ignoring the fact that any secret that is indexed by google and Yahoo! is no longer technically secret.

Colston Street; Christmas steps is behind to the left. Where to park? Asda van YD57HPC has gone for the pavement by the zig zags where it is reversing up with minimal visbility.. Seems to work, and by being so far up the pavement, no danger for the one pedestrian we see.

Later on the day, we see the same spot is now in use by abbeyfieldlandscapes with their van SB57EWT

It's secret places like this that give the locals an edge over visitors, which is why we have to keep them secret.

The RAC: missing the elephant on the room

The RAC. The fourth emergency service. Or is that the AA? Either way, they come out for us, and will park on zig-zags by a pedestrian crossing -below on Muller Road- to handle our breakdowns. But expensive. RAC roadside assistance for two drivers with at home support, recovery and euro-breakdown comes to £283.50. That's a lot. If you are one of those wimps who don't drive a group G road-tax car, it's way more than your road tax. So you need to make a choice, don't you: Tax and MoT or breakdown cover? One you need, one you may be able to get away without, providing the DVLA don't catch you.

Fortunately, the RAC have seen a solution: abolish road tax.

The RAC has put up a paper on Road Charging, that encourages replacing road tax and fuel tax with pay to use fees.  We initially thought that the BBC had accidentally used the phrase "road tax" to cover vehicle excise duty, and completely ignore the fact that group A vehicles pay nothing, so if you drive a small hybrid car you pay no VED and discounted fuel duty due to its increased economy. But no the RAC, they don't represent the little people. They represent us: the big cars, the white vans, the V8 range rovers coming in to london from oxfordshire. So the RAC used the term "road tax" in their key points, and the BBC radio and web site naively believed the report was somehow independent, rather than a plan to free up money for RAC breakdown cover. 

Now, what about the actual report? We like the idea of abolishing fuel duty and road tax, but we think the idea of making people pay-per-mile-driven misses the elephant in the room: pedestrians and cyclists. How can we make them pay-per-mile walked or cycled -and without that, how can they be made to bear a realistic proportion of the congestion they cause? Every pedestrian who uses a zebra crossing or pelican crossing may hold up traffic, and should be charged at least for the lost time of every driver. Similarly, a bicycle pootling along at 15 mph shouldn't just be billed for using the road, they should pay a congestion charges of the row of cars behind which have been forced to also drive at 15 mph.

We don't understand why the article missed this -it's so obvious. They even showed the problem at work in bristol. Go to page 47, look at the photo on the top. That's the zebra crossing on St Michael's Hill, looking down to town. And there are some happy students gaily prancing over the crossing -probably holding up the photography team.

We don't currently have the photo from that exact same location, though we have one from slightly further back on some winter day when drivers were forced to swerve round road closed signs.


Slightly further down the hill, almost aligned with the zebra crossing, you can see the view of the city that the RAC use in their paper. Yet despite the photo, the RAC miss the elephant in the room, or more precisely, pedestrians in the road. In our way. In the way of the road-taxy payers, or, in the future, road-use-tax payers.

Unless a pay-to-use road system also bills all pedestrians and cyclists for the congestion and pollution they cause, even indirectly, it will be anti-motorist.

There's only one thing about the RAC using photo of our St Michaels Hill in their otherwise missing-the-point article that cheers us up. Every person walking over the zebra crossing from left to right in these photos has had to come from Southwell Street. And what's so special about that? It's the one where the hospital blocked off the pavement to force the pedestrians into the road. But even there, do the pedestrians get billed for holding up BRI hospital cars? We doubt it.

Breaking news: Mobility Vehicles pay no tax either!

We are pleased to see the Evening Post commentator team have turned their attention from one enemy of our city -the cyclists - to another: the elderly and their transport options.

Here on Cotham Brow we see one out on the road, swerving past the van WV55UED parked on zebra crossing zig-zags  -a van which, were it to say Siemens Traffic Control- would be allowed to park there unharassed by the parking police.

The disabled person in a mobility scooter is not paying any road tax, and as it is an electric vehicle, no fuel tax.

Yet it holds up white vans, the lifeblood of the city

Siemens Highway Maintenance: Exempt

Who should we see on Fishponds Road one sunny weekday morning but the Siemens traffic light team, working on the pedestrian crossing, having moved on from Muller Road.

While taking this photo of the van BN59YEC, someone up a ladder on the other side of this street started shouting "I'm exempt! I'm exempt!". We don't care! We are here to document the possible, not criticise!

However, his claim raises an interesting thought. As we discussed, it is legal for police to park on zig-zags when on call, but not legal for us to paint "Police" on the front, sides and back of our white van, so that fact is of little use.

However it is not illegal to paint "Siemens" and "Highway Maintenance" on your van. We checked. No laws.

Therefore, anyone with a white van who wants to park where they like should nip out to get their vehicle painted up like this, and then get out their and reclaim the zig-zags! And the pavements!

The Polis come to Bemmy

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

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

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

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

Clifton Mums Hour

This week is what used to be half term, before we had six term school years.

Last week was different, which meant that the chaos that is Clifton Mums Hour reigned, twice a day or more, in the vicinity of Clifton College.

Imagine the scene... a lone cyclist in College Road trying to get to the Downs vs a Clifton Mum in a car. A no-brainer. Cars parked both sides of the road, no space, and at least a 5 second shorter journey by car. If I were a Clifton Mum I certainly wouldn't let a cyclist hold me up. I'd cut right in front of them and slam on my brakes to let another car park. Or, 5 seconds later, I'd pull right in to the kerb and stop at the zebra crossing, blocking the cyclist again. Ha!

Then I'd hack it off up the road before the cyclist catches up - and park up on the yellow zig-zags outside the school to set a good example to my children, which is what the driver of WR57AXW did.

So if you nip down to The Avenue in Clifton at about 15:00 this week, this chaotic scene will not greet you. There will be no cars parked on yellow zig-zags, no cars on the pavements, and nobody daring to park on the double yellow lines. Give it a week or so though, and you too could join in with the fun, like this:

It's important to note that EK59SDX and WR57AXW are very important people, so are allowed to park their cars on the zig-zags, whilst WM09CZA is probably an actual VIP, as shown by the flashing indicators.

Lesser mortals, such as Range Rover LTP321, WU56TZV, MJ55FUV, WR03AUJ, LB55UHH, WR58WSN, MA07HNL, VN02VUL, WJ58YBB, RO51LOD, KN07PID, XHY1 had to park on the double yellow lines and pavements. They were not alone, but our database will explode if we record many more.

Only T59SAE manages allow pedestrians access to the pavement by staying firmly on the double yellows in the road. Kudos.

Our advice: don't have strange haircuts in Clifton during term-time.

The Stepford wives of Clifton really don't like it.

Breaking news: Muller Road crossing in final test phase!

We have been sent some photos and a video showing that the new Muller Road crossing is nearly ready -the council's subcontractors are just checking everything is good to go on this, the showcase cycle city route.

1. The lights are changing and someone is calibrating the timings
2. Someone else from the team is verifying it is still OK to park on the zig-zags.
3. The van is blocking the bike lane to test that people on bicycles feel unwelcome in the city

As any frequent visitor to this site will know, being able to park on the zig-zags by crossings is considered important, so we are grateful that the Siemens team did check there were no problems. Sadly, this time the troublemaker of a reporter, "S" had a different opinion, and did apparently ask them WTF they were doing, but they gave the correct answer "I've got to park somewhere, mate". More to the point, this is the only place on the road you can park where you know that you won't get clipped by cars, so it's invaluable that parking rules here aren't enforced.

Our reporter did get a bit of on path video, showing that it doesn't inconvenience cars or pedestrians, merely bicycles trying to head up Muller Road. One schoolkid actually opts to cycle on the pavement -so endangering a jogger coming the other way.

If the kid is old enough to get home from school on their own, they are old enough to start aspiring to motorised transport. They should recognise that the Siemens Traffic signalling van (BN59YEC we think) is parked here for their own good, and start saving up for a scooter, at the very least.

Cycle Town Portsmouth: the bollards

One impressive feature of the shopping street in Portsmouth is the number of bollards to discourage driving and parking on the pavement. This is downtown Southsea, not Pompey-central, whose infamous Tricorn Centre has been demolished and awaiting someone getting finance to build a replacement. Our Cabot Circus has taken on the role of being Britain's new Tricorn Centre.

By this zebra crossing, there are bollards and bike parks to stop anyone parking their car on the pavements in the zig-zag area. Given the cost of adding bollards, there's a signal here that such parking was in fact a problem until they went in.

Similarly, side roads have bollards mid-pavement to discourage cars, people with push-chairs, etc. Sometimes you have to make a little sacrifice.

Does it work? It depends on your definition of "work". Certainly it stops cars parking half on the pavement in the zig-zag section of a zebra crossing.

Mission Accomplished, then!