Brian Rogers of Kingswood: speaking the truth

We've been a bit quiet recently. The main problem: thinking of new things to say.

Everyone has this problem. Take this well thought out letter from Brian Rogers of Kingswood.

It certainly pushes our buttons:

1. affluent middle classes cycling
2. holding up important people on their way to work
3. tax-payer funded lycra clad louts
4. sanctimonious, car-hating people
5. fill up the car parks

That would be a good article: tax dodging affluent (actually, this is probably true), car hating, and driving to our favourite parking spaces. It would make a good article, and we have formally invited Brian to actually write for us. All he'd need is "in our lane", "red light jumping" and "speeding along too fast" and we'd win this week's Daily Mail "lycra lout" bingo.

Of course, the same day that George "coke" Osborne announces that air passenger duty won't be applied to people flying in and out of the city on private planes is particularly bad timing for the tax-payer funded text. Remember: those people who live in Monaco and fly in for three days a week may retain non-resident tax payer status, but they hold up the economy, and adding £30/week on the already outrageous cost of (tax free) jet fuel would force them stop flying in to the UK at all.

Brian needs to work on his timing a bit there.

Furthermore, a quick web search shows that he wrote pretty much the same letter  a year ago.

 irresponsible for the city council to pour tax payers' funds into a cycling track that is, well, just a hobby for a privileged and sanctimonious few?

See? The same problem we have. There's only so much orginality you can do from one point-of-vitriol. Brian is having trouble writing the same letter once a year -you can imagine how hard it us for us.

Maybe its time for the team to retire

Occupy Redland

OK... College Green is full of tents. The grass is a bit buggered. Billy Bragg has sung to the masses. The Council is letting it happen. All good.


So it's nice to see that a break away group appears to have established itself in Redland. Not on the Green, but near it.

This car, we're sure, is the new outpost for "Occupy Redland". YCZ7199. It's been here for the last three days, making quite a statement by parking in a slightly anarchistic state. On the junction of Hartington Park and Woodstock Road.


We thought of inviting the Daily Mail down, with their heat seeking cameras, to see if it was being used at night, but so far we've had nothing positive. 

Using the alternative

I would like to follow the instructions, only white van man and other lazy parkers are blocking the pavement (despite the fact it's perfectly legal to park here).

Integrated Public Transport

Contributor "R" writes to us

Dear Bristol Traffic

These flats on Cotham Road South opposite the junction of Kingsdown Parade and Horfield Hill were built only a few years ago with the car in mind. The ground floor level includes garages with access across the pavement to the road. However, I wonder if the developers failed to realise just how useful garages are for keeping other things in apart from cars ?

Perhaps they did as their clever design hints at the existence of a driveway in front of the garages. This hint has not been overlooked by this tax-payer who is presumably pleased that the bus stop outside the garages gives pedestrians the satisfaction of making good use of what we all regard as an underused part of the road network.

Indeed we should applaud this as an example of "integrated public transport". I was unable to stay for long and determine the effect on pedestrians of an approaching bus.

Yours dearly,
"R"

This is a fine example of integrated transport. We also suspect that as this is in the Kingsdown RPZ, such imaginative parking will allow the resident to avoid needing to pay extra anti-motorist tax on their vehicle. 

Costa Fortune

BMWs cost a fortune. And this one, LF52XBW, parked up on the pavement on Gloucester Road today was being eyed up and photographed by more than a few people today. Hence the security looking after it.

But why was it there?


Well, it's complicated. The bit of road that runs between the Bear Pit and Filton Avenue changes names a few times - North Street, Stokes Croft, Cheltenham Road and Gloucester Road. It's Bristol's premier cycle commute route, and home to a Bristol Showcase Bus Route. The people that inhabit the road rather like its independent feel, free, mostly, from the anodyne 'High Street' shops and outlets so pervasive of most British towns and cities. The residents tend to kick off a bit when corporate idiocy tries to impose its muscle on the local populace.


Ergo, today there was a bit of a protest outside the new Costa Coffee which is apparently illegally opening on Gloucester Road. It seems franchise holder, Stuart Montgomery, plans to ride rough-shod over Planning Law and open a new outlet here, having been refused planning permission to do so. The complication is not that he can do it, but that it is not until he does it that Bristol City Council can serve an enforcement notice*** on him to cease trading.

Local councillors Jon Rogers and Gus Hoyt turned up, along with MP Stephen Williams to register their support for the protesters in front of both HTV and the local press. The usual anarchist protesters also daubed chalk on the pavement, even after the politicians had left and the police had arrived with their CCTV van. But this is middle-class Bishopston, so no trouble.

Back to the BMW though. Why was it there?


The best suggestion I heard was by Jon Rogers, who asked, "Is it the prize for the first person to buy a coffee here?" That, of course, will allow the Council to force the apparently unwelcome franchise to close.

On a lighter note, though, there is a new, independent, Bread Stall down the road in Stokes Croft, outside the old Sofa Riot shop, not competing with any existing business except Tesco. Now even the transient student population can get decent bread without having to use a multinational minimart.

*** He recently tried the same trick in Whiteladies Road, where, we hear, an enforcement notice has been served by BCC after he opened a Costas in the former Derbyshire's newsagents premises. Of course, enforcement takes time, so business is being done.

Occupy M32: year 40

A group of protestors are camped on college green, but apart from the "whiners corner" of the Evening Post, not having much effect.

A greater group of protesters have decided to come out in numbers and bring the city to its knees. Here they are on the M32

Their protest demonstration goes all the way up to Eastville junction.

Yet the mainstream media completely ignores this, even though these protestors include BMW and Mercedes drivers -the nearly-but-not-quite-1%, whose journeys in from the suburbs are crippled by the excessive fuel taxes the state is charging in order to keep the banks afloat.

The residents of the areas near the M32 are aware of this ongoing protest against the capitalist economy, and have been spraying signs of support against the M32 itself.

If there is one criticism, this protest has been going on for about forty years, and yet it has had little effect.

no, not our van

Someone emails us to say

"was this the famous Bristol Traffic Van? It drove out of Ashley Road after the light changed to block the traffic heading north to Cheltenham Road. Many of the drivers on Stokes Croft were somewhat unhappy about this, as the junction was already blocked and the driver ended up even stopping cars heading south from getting through"

No not us. It says Lloyds Pharmacy prescription delivery on the side, while ours clearly says "pornography delivery"

Railwaypath Ghost Cyclist

We've been using the term Ghost Rider to describe someone who chooses to die on a bicycle, usually by RLJ-ing. The last video of someone on a bike crashing into a pedestrian causes us to look at the rest of taypet21's video collection. This person is a threat to the rest of the city. really.

Look at this video where he crashes into someone walking down the railway path. It's like he sees the women, and rather than try and slow down, he speeds up and runs into the screaming. If this was us, we'd destroy the evidence rather than put it up on youtube

Broadmead bumping

A video reaches us of an incident at the bike path crossing rupert street to the horsefair where the cyclist crashes into the pedestrian and they both come off.


Nice swearing. If we cycled, we'd swear like that too. One point though: there are no lights controlling pedestrian crossings of the bike path, and so that highway code about giving way to pedestrians probably kicks in. The other: this was predicable. There is no point putting a camera and a horn on your bike if you aren't going to look at where people are walking and whether they are looking at you.

More RLJ work on Cheltenham Road

We're going to credit this cyclist coming up Bath buildings and crossing Cheltenham Road for actually looking and only going out when it is clear to do so, and waiting at the traffic island for a gap in the other lane.

Again, being a bit fitter and climbing up the mild incline on Bath Buildings would have saved time, and if you can't climb that when what faces you straight ahead, Arley Hill, is going to hurt. Looks more like this RLJ-er is going to right turn onto the Gloucester Road bus lane though.

Not so suicidal to be called a ghost-rider, just, well, pointless. The taxi in the ASL isn't going to run him over when the lights change as the cars blocking the hatched junction remove the option to pull out fast. Why then?

Now some Geister Fahrading on Cheltenham Road

Another RLJ-ing cyclist, here on Cheltenham Road


0:01 cars coming from Bath Buildings get to go left or right onto Cheltenham Road; cyclists can also go straight on for a contraflow.

0:12 Arley Hill gets green, cars and cyclists set off

0:14, A woman on a bicycle goes straight past the camera.

We are sure the tax dodging online press will be pleased at the gender balance of our RLJ footage, but can they at least tell the cyclists to look both ways when they run a red light? If your light is red, there are two meanings

1. Everyone has red, it's pedestrians you are going to hit and other cyclists that will hit you.
2. One or more lanes are green and you will become the statistic. 

Hypothesis #2 is the one they should worry about.  If our van had been in the Arley Hill ASL, our "launch on warning" system would have kicked in and we'd have pulled our foot off the clutch while texting the final message to our next delivery. Anyone cycling directly across our way, 14 seconds into her red light period is someone that the post mortem would say "she chose to die".

In Germany they have the phrase "Geister Fahrer" -Ghost Driver- to describe someone who chooses to commit suicide by driving the wrong way up an Autobahn. Here in Bristol we have the less well-off doing the same, the Geister Fahrader.

Unfit and bad judgement

We're always being accused of somehow presenting the cyclist point of view, rather than discuss the problems that RLJ-ing cyclists present. Good point. Lets run some of those videos. Before that, let's pre-empt the "when cyclists RLJ they don't endanger anyone" claim. Not so. When they run zebra crossings or pedestrian crossings they do endanger pedestrians. If they force pedestrians to hold back they may keep the pedestrians from crossing the road until the cars get a green light, so exposing them to more risk. And they completely destroy any moral high ground the tax dodgers claim to inhabit.

For the next few postings then, some RLJ-by-bike work. More than that though: some theories as to why. It can't be because they are important and in a hurry: as if they were they would be driving. There must be other reasons.



Let's start with this video at the Muller Road/Shaldon Road junction.

0:00 Filming begins on Station Lane, there are two tax dodgers here, cyclist #1 is female and in front of the filming one.
0:08 The woman on the bicycle (henceforth "cyclist #1") crosses Muller Road while the right hand approach lanes have green for both turning and going straight on. This is the 3rd or 4th set of red lights since the M32, and cars are still in speed mode and not used to red themselves. Yet she sets off, wobbling a bit, as she tries to get up the hill.

0:09-0:21 she's now got a line of cars going up the hill beside her, as she approaches a parked car she's going to have to pull out on.

0:22: now as she reaches the pullout point there's a supermarket delivery van to deal with.


0:28 Shaldon road gets its green for traffic going straight on or right (left turn has been green since 0:06)

0:40 Station Lane gets green, the other cyclist (henceforth "tax dodger #2") sets off

1:03 the woman who sets off at 0:08 gets passed by tax dodger #2.

Let's look at cyclist's #1's actions then. She set off through a red light, exposing her to risk to crossing traffic, reinforcing (clearly valid) perceptions about RLJing cyclists, and then making it harder to get up the hill because of the passing cars then the van making the pull-out that much harder.

And for what? Because tax dodger #2 reeled her in about 20 seconds. At that rate, if she was going up the hill towards UWE, what would be for tax dodger #2 a 15 minute hill climb will, for cyclist #1, be something more like a 45 minute crawl. At which rate the saving of 40s is absolutely negligible. Maybe running a red would make sense if it would save you time, but in this case it offered increase risk for no real benefit.

Why do it then? Why not just wait for green and pedal a bit harder when it arrives?

Crash by the pump house

video up on youtube; no more details yet. This is by the Cumberland Basin flyover; that right hand lane is how you get over the bridge; the straight on lane is to the portway. There is a newly painted bike lane up to the old bridge (leading you to the Nova Scotia pub), but no give way markings for the cause.

Hope all is well.

Dirac's Antipermeability hypothesis

Dirac Road, off Ashley Down. Named after Paul Dirac, Nobel Prize winner for hypothesizing the existence of "anti matter"; something that was later proved to exist.

Dirac Road is named after him. Sadly, due to the large amounts of energy involved when antimatter collides with conventional matter, they cannot put any on display. Instead they have to focus on anti-permeability, the idea of making open space opaque to people on foot or bicycle

First on this corner we can see the car making the pavement antipermeable

Nothing profound there, you can see it anywhere in the city. What is more unique is this barrier over the footpath between Dirac Road and Lilstock Avenue -which connects with the famous "farm pub path". There is a risk that people might use this so called "access point" between the two roads to get to this path -or worse, come up here and then proceed safely on foot or bicycle to Brunel Technical College (scene of the "do not cycle on the pavement" signs and the Happy Road incident), or Sefton Park Primary school.

This barrier makes that hard, so ensuring that there are few high-energy collisions between conventional matter "cars" and anti-society matter "people on foot or bicycle".

It could be alleged that this is a temporary feature while the primary access point to the Farm Pub Path -station road- is closed for roadworks. Yet look at the base of this feature: it is embedded into the concrete

The allegation can be even more firmly disproved by looking in the opposite direction, and observing that the dropped kerb is actually placed to the side of the path.

This is a permanent fixture to celebrate Dirac's work on antimatter, by showing how Antipermeability can improve things.

Speaking of which, we hear rumours of a new Antipermeability project underway in South Gloucs. We will delegate this work to the People's cycling front of S. Gloucs, as an inspection up there would involve getting stuck in traffic jams in the newly widened A4174 ring road, which is a waste of our time.

Une discourse dans le village du Montpelier

Vous savez que vous etre dans un petit village quand vous encontrez les residents engagement dans une discourse dans la rue. Les grands villes sont anonyme - ce n'est pas vrai pour villages comme Montpelier.


Aujourd'hui nous pouvons voir des residents en conversation sur le sujet de droits de passage. Est-ce-que la priorite a les autos de Bath Buildings, ou pour les voitures qui faisant la traverse de St Andrews a la Rue de Cheltenham?

Nous ne savant pas que les residents ont decidee. Notre journaliste a dit as nous "J'ai pas attende a voir qui a gagne parce-que je pourrait pas culee" [1,2]

[1] an incorrect translation of "I could not be arsed"
[2] note how the descending tax dodger flips the 20mph light on the way down, yet the BMW in front appears not to.

Forward Planing

While the lights are red, an opportunity arises to take a photo of the Seahorse Pub, a pub that used to be part of the Smiles brewery chain, but had two features that distinguished from the Brewery tap across the road: a choice of non-Smiles beers and the Smiles Exhibition didn't run out as often

Sadly, someone cycling through a red light ruins the shot. Why is he doing it.

It starts to make sense: by cruising through early he avoids the problem of getting from the left hand lane to the right hand lane while two lanes of vehicles are trying to push through.

Of course, that leaves the problem of waiting at the bottom of St Michael's hill for the lights to change. Clipped in to the pedals, he either has to unclip and put a foot down, or do a track stand.

Or there's option three: lie down and take a rest. This provides an opportunity to give his cardiovascular system and his legs the rest they need before commencing the St Michael's Hill climb

Reclaiming the Streets

There's a growing scandal in the press that an undercover policeman infiltrated the group Reclaim the Streets.

While we do not approve of the activities of these tax dodgers, we can't speak highly of the police infiltrating a group of lentil-eating- ippies just because their activities brought the traffic in city centres to a halt at peak hours.

If bringing the city to a halt a peak hours by blocking the streets with your vehicle is a crime -then we are all criminals. 

Look at the scene above: the M32 after 9am on a weekday. Brought to a halt. Is this a crime? No, it's commuting. the only thing wrong here is that we can't use the hard shoulder even though everyone is only doing 15 mph.

That's one reason we don't approve. Where will they draw the line? Start with the hippies, soon they will be trying to find out who kept torching speed cameras, attending meetings of the Association of British Drivers and keeping an eye on us patriots.

The other reason we don't approve: it's a complete waste of time and effort.

Imagine the the uncover police team christmas party as they all get together and discuss how they protected the nation from its enemies, inside and out

• "I infiltrated Real IRA and kept the Northern Ireland peace settlement alive."
• "I infiltrated a group of drug dealers and kept 500kg of cocaine out of Britain."
• "I infiltrated Reclaim the Streets and pedalled a human-powered sound system round Clapham."

You'd be laughed at and be so embarrassed you'd find excuses not to go to the following year's party. It's the bottom ring of undercover police work, worse even than that dire film Kindergarten Cop where Schwarzenegger goes undercover as a school teacher. At least he didn't have to cycle round south London on a three person bicycle where the one at the back powered a loudspeaker.

It's just not impressive. It's not the thing you sign up for is it? That's the really shocking thing: the government could be bothered to infiltrate these groups. We wouldn't. Especially now the Bristol Cycling Campaign have stopped holding their meetings in that room above the Cornubia Pub.

Forward Planning

We've discussed before planning strategies, such as the MiniMax algorithm, and how a limiting factor is how far ahead you plan. The planning horizon limits your options, and often the game is won by whoever plans furthest ahead.

We are perfectly happy with a planning horizon of one: what is the next thing in your way. However, we are pretty unimpressed by this video which was sent to us of a car in Clifton who'se planning horizon was zero. When a car is coming towards you, you either do two things -commit at speed or back off. What you don't do is go alongside the bicycle at 15 mph with a car coming towards you at 20 mph, as that leads to an exchange of details and some insurance premiums, especially now that tax-dodgers are starting to carry cameras and no doubt willing to supply their videos as evidence.

If you are going to overtake with oncoming traffic, put your foot down!

Bristol's Secret Rat-runs

We are debating providing some coverage of Bristol's secret rat-runs, to go alongside our secret parking coverage. Today, the best way to get from Ashley Hill to the M32 -Magdalene Place

It's good to see Red Driving School WVIIUEK showing a learner driver about this road, and how to correctly position themselves to take it properly.

Careful Passing

Everyone recommends giving bicycles room when passing, -and they complain when you don't, especially when traffic islands create pinch points.

Here a vehicle on Shaldon Road, Lockleaze, demonstrates the correct way to safely pass a slow-moving bicycle at a pinch point.