Freewheeler Back! And he mentions us!

Freewheeler's "Crap Walking and Cycling in Waltham Forest" blog used to send lots of traffic our way, so it's been sorely missed -we are overjoyed that he is back.

Not only, that, he mentions us in a rogue cyclist article, where he claims that we will be overjoyed to see that someone cycling in Hampstead Heath got fined 330 quid, whereas drivers caught doing over 90-100 mph on the A94 were only fined 200.

Mixed feelings there.

As background, one of our reporters actually grew up in the Kilburn/Cricklewood area, shocking apparently even went to the same primary school as Bradley Wiggins, albeit many decades earlier. As such, they know about the Heath, which pubs nearby were best for under age drinking, and which of the open air swimming pools are best for ad-hoc sexual encounters. It's that latter point that concerns us. Unlike the Downs, which has good driving and parking right next to the play areas, the Hampstead Heath pools are less accessible, and a quick bike ride through the Heath is a fast way to get there -and it's not as if you are holding up anyone important. As for the idea of punishing someone for engaged in illegal activities on the Heath, -well, we'll have to check through our phone's photo collection from the last weekend special in NW3, but we think that Magistrates name sounds familiar -if he is the one in the video, no moral high ground there.

After Dark: it is everyones right to do what they want on hampstead heath provided they are consenting adults. And to keep personal photos of the activities afterwards.

Regarding the motorists, we are not suprised that they were let off more lightly. These people need to drive. Nobody needs to cycle -and nor, in the absence of cycling licenses and penalty points, could the tax-dodgers claim the "exceptional hardship" defence.

From the article

• HGV driver Kevin Charles Dixon, caught doing 132mph, "said losing his licence would mean losing his job and that would cost him his home. "
• Jason Dunn’s - 72mph through the 40mph zone, "said he drove for his boss and had been 20 minutes late for an appointment."
• Shayla Christina -96 mph- "said she needed her car to do two care service jobs looking after up to 20 people a week in their own homes."
• Joiner Dale Harrower -101 mph- "told magistrates he could be sacked" .
• Eric Neil Joyce -106 mph- "said a ban would cost him his job and his place on a Government-sponsored HGV training course. "

You see? These people need to drive for their work. 

Now some people -and we suspect Freewheler to be one of those, along with the entire membership of the People's Cycling Front of South Gloucestershire, will say something like, "if these people need to drive for their job, perhaps they should think about before driving 30-50 miles an hour above the speed limit, as these people did". Perhaps they'd say "If all these people drive as part of their job, then banning them from driving is a good outcome". Or worst of all "If these are the professional drivers -what does it say about the amateurs?"

That the kind of negative thinking that will hamper our country's economic recovery,

It's precisely why speed limits hold back regeneration that the government is looking at 80 mph limits, and why the DfT isn't running a series of adverts saying "Can't live without a car? Don't break the speed limit", or "Need a car for work? Better not lose your license then".

As it is, they don't need to do that because the magistrates all understand that people driving and speeding is essential to returning Britain to Greatness, whereas someone cycling on a footpath is just a troublemaker who deserves to have the book thrown at them.

Saving the taxpayer money

We like this.

By selflessly parking on the pavement, the driver of this Audi - WV56YKD - has managed to save us, the tax payers, the expense of at least 3 square metres of new pavement surfacing in Redland. We are impressed.

Temple Gate bike crossings

we are not entirely sure what the rights of ways of this cyclist-only junction in the middle of the temple gate roundabout ,-close to templemeads railway station-  actually are.

In the photo above, the camera may be taken from a path to the right which has priority over bicycles coming from the left or far left. But look at that far left approach it's on the wrong side of the pavement. And the oncoming route is meant to give way -but give way to what?
 
passing cyclists seemed to go by with no  respect for the rule of the highway code at all.

Cherry Picked Catering: cherry picking the parking

Nice to see the new residents of this Hotwells restaurant, Cherry Picked Catering, have managed to find a good buildout for their van

We are concerned that the pedestrian needing two walking sticks to walk past it may inadvertently scrape the paintwork, but as they selflessly went onto the road, this risk was transferred to oncoming traffic instead.

Hurlingham Road -we have lost the battle

Shocking pictures reach us of how a rat run has been stolen

The presence of a cycle contraflow shows that this was put in by an anti-car council. Is it a coincidence that the councillors for the area are Jon Rogers and the green councillor Gus Hoyt?
 
They've even put in double yellow lines at the new parking bay.


We also hear of a petition for a safe pedestrian crossing on Ashley hill, which will add even more delays on our journeys.

When will this outrageous war on motorists ever end?

At least central government is on our side -but what use if that if road-by-road, the rat runs go away. This is even more insidious than 20mph limits, which you can ignore completely if you are on a hurry. This is total rat-run theft.

Brent -what are the cyclists complaining about

On our london trip to the Zil Lanes, we spotted in Kenton this segregated cycle lane

The barriers keep the cyclists safely separated from the moving cars in the foreground, and the dedicated shoppers parking lane and parking area behind. We can see they improve safety by the way that 80% of the barriers are bent or bashed -that's a lot of "cyclist hit a car" incidents that have been prevented.
 
Yes, for the 30 metres of this path, the cyclists of Brent have nothing to complain about
 
If we had an issue, notice in the left of the photo how there is a car parked up against the cycle sign. The addition of a pedestrian crossing and cycleway stops parking on the through-traffic lane, so reduces  the parking capacity of this shopping street from four cars in parallel (there's the other side of the road), to two cars. This is exactly the kind of anti-parking measures that are leading to the death of traditional high streets such as this.

Secret Whiteladies road GBBN parking

We are happy to declare the whiteladies road showcase bus route a success.

Before, parking here on whiteladies road was forbidden, because it had zig-zags. Now it is somewhere you can park during rush hour.

This is because the parking restrictions are not live until the signs go up-until then buses and cyclists get to go down the single lane, while we can park there all day.
 
Apparently this enlightened state of affairs will last another month or two.

20 mph! for the whole city! Disaster!

Terrible news reaches us: the council has voted in 20mph speed limits on all residential roads in the inner city.

This is heartbreaking. It doesn't actually mean much as the only time you can put your foot down is in the 11pm+ "minicab hours", where 40mph is the defacto speed limit -but it's the thought that counts.

This proposal is clearly pandering to the people who live in the city, at the expense of the commuters from the edges of the town, from North Somerset and South Gloucestershire. Those people, the wealth bringers, need to drive in to the city in their status-vehicles, and now have to face a council even more war-on-motorist than before.

Why do the councillors choose such a short-sighted policy? It's because of the forthcoming mayoral elections. The wealth bringers outside the city don't have any vote in the election, so their needs can be ignored. Such a plan can only bring financial disaster to the region.

One councillor, Peter Abraham, has been bold enough to stand up against this, "it will cause frustration to motorists" he says, before slipping the code-phrase "driving at the right speed for the right conditions". This is the secret handshake of ABD, just as the phrase "indigenous people" is to the BNP.

Sadly for Peter Abrams, the ABD are as completely out of touch with a modern city as the BNP are. Look at our previously documented video of the 20 mph zone of Montpelier:

The frustation that YY03YGM, experiences is not the 20 mph speed limit, which they manage to get past while overtaking the cyclist. No, what is frustrating is

1. The cyclist with the camera doing 18-19 mph in the 20 mph zone.
2. The oncoming bicycle at the junction which forces the car to come to a complete halt.
3. The person walking their dog in the road at 0:56
4. The oncoming bicycle at (1:03)
5. The oncoming bicycle at (1:06)
6. The two children playing in the road on a pogo stick at 1:15
7. The bicycle at 1:25
8. The people walking the road carrying a box at 1:28
9. The car parked in the road with its hazard lights on at 1:30.

These are the problems. Not the speed limit, but the way it encourages people to walk, cycle, -even play in the streets. This is the real problem. It downgrades the residential streets from "rat runs where the right conditions are 30mph even through corners" to "quiet roads where people are walking, cycling and playing there as if it was 1908 and cars hadn't arrived; a country where people driving are viewed as unwelcome invaders instead of an essential part of the life of the city".

This is exactly what threatens us. When the council says "encourage walking and cycling", it means "encourage anti-motorist activities in the city".

As Peter Abraham says, "Are we going to harass the motorists every mile they drive?" 

If you look at Montpelier -that's exactly what they are doing. And it's exactly what the council is planning on rolling out across the entire city.   

G4S: keeping the pavements safe

"P" sends us a pic of a G4S van KJ05MZP in Cardigan Road Henleaze, neatly paveparked by double yellow lines.:

G4S have been receiving a lot of bad press these days about security and safety at the olympics. It is nice to see that here they are making sure that no pedestrians on this pavement will be hit by fast moving cyclists -as all cyclists will be on the road here.

Free BRI parking

A letter hits our inbox, sharing one of the secret parking places of the city -this time by the Bristol Royal Infirmary:

In previous correspondence I mentioned that I had found a great place to park on Colston Street.

 

However, I am fed up of having to walk the 20 extra yards to the BRI so I've decided to start parking on the bit of pavement at the top of Christmas Steps instead. Imagine my outrage when I tried to park my Hummer there, only to discover that MM05BVB had got to *my* space first.

We sympathise with this person, but point they only have themselves to blame. Once you publish your secret parking spots  -everyone finds out about them.

the Zil Lanes of London

We had to use the range rover for a special delivery to London this week -the national coverage of Stokes Croft has expanded our customer base. If someone called "Boris" wants a four day old cheeseburger from Slix, we will oblige.

Over in London, we saw the first "Zil Lanes", lanes dedicated to exclusive use of important people.

We have has these for a while, "bus lanes", only the fact that bicycles are banned from here makes it better.


Before anyone asks, "how does the B.T team get to use them?", here's the answer.
 
Diplomatic plates

This sign is up in the Exhibition Road "Shared Space", which makes it extra special: we can share the space with any other vehicle with diplomatic plates. Lovely.

Police Tactics

Good to see the Police are employing people to help discourage cycling in Bristol. Especially trying to discourage those travelling with children onboard their bicycle for the school run (as was the case in this video submitted by S via our East Bristol franchise). The TSD Fleet Support vehicle WX11EWN is a van that is registered as an Avon and Somerset Police Force vehicle and even shows up as part of proud collection of vehicles on Flickr if you Google "TSD Fleet Support Flickr".

Visit the videos Youtube page for full info at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwpkhDdHOpY

Hold the Road 2

Last Friday, we reported on the 50 plus new parking spaces available on Whiteladies Road. We featured Audi YL06DYP taking advantage of the new spaces.

It appears that, whilst owners of lesser quality German vehicles have yet to take advantage of these new parking spaces, word has spread within the Audi driving community.

Here we see another Audi - WV60EZL - taking advantage of the same space.

As a civic service, we're thinking of writing to all car manufacturers to let them know of the scheme provided by Bristol City Council as part of the Greater Bristol Bus Network.

H/T Dru Marland for the photo

Hold the Road

As regular readers will know, we have covered the GBBN (Greater Bristol Bus Network) before.

We were sceptical at first, thinking that it might reduce parking opportunities in favour of the most profound losers in society: those that don't own a car.

Well, there are still cyclists, pedestrians and buses using Whiteladies Road, but it turns out that the revised road layout carefully concealed at least fifty new parking spots.

Here we see YL06DYP taking advantage of one of these new parking spaces. 

This is genius: we look forward to more use of Bristol's roads for static vehicles.

The battle for Hurlingham Road

In the on-going war against motorists, those tax-dodger loving folk at Bristol City Council, led probably by Col. Jon Rodgers, recently permanently blockaded our lovely little rat run, Hurlingham Road, allowing access only for cyclists and pedestrians.

This provocative act of madness unilaterally curtailing our right to tear up the road in the rush hour, watching cyclists, buggy toting parents, cats and dogs scatter in shock & awe, should not go unopposed. Indeed, it did not.

Some of us in the HVF (The Hurlingham Volunteer Force) tried to restore the natural order, very soon after only the kerbstones had been laid, by driving straight over them. This worked for a while, but then the enemy cemented in black bollards. So, as my 2IC reports, some of us had to resort to driving half on the pavement and half over the kerbstones.

It was fun, while that lasted, seeing the untermensch taken out of their comfort zone and only avoiding becoming collateral damage by walking in the centre of the road - the confusion in their eyes so touching.

However, the enemy counter-attacked by sinking in wooden poles adjacent to the bollards. Now, with their barricades are fully built, there is no way we can get through. However, this particular battle may be lost but with proper guerrilla tactics we can still disrupt the real enemy: the cyclist.

 

One of our soldiers, who for operational reasons will only be known as White Van Man (Rank: Superior, Number: KV08WDZ) deserves special mention in this dispatch. Using all of his field skills, he has blocked any two-wheeler from accessing their little apology for a rat run. Cleverly he has left a little gap on the left to make it appear as if there is room to get through, but when the hapless cyclist gets close he'll realise that there is no room to cycle straight through. Priceless. The fightback continues ...

(photos and text from "BK")

Stokes Croft goes national

The guardian has published article looking at stokes croft as a place to live.

This is the first time that Stokes Croft has anything vaguely resembling positive coverage, so it's worth a read.

Sadly, it's flawed. As we've stated before stokes croft is not Bohemian.

Yes, it does have a flower shop, so the "A revolution must have flowers" quote is correct -yet the author of the article completely omits the adjacent retail outlet, Slix -the food of the revolution, or how this so-called revolution will impact the paid-sex industry of the area.




For claims that the croft is gentrified, we are pleased to reassure people that the coloured paint is, literally, a thin layer of paint over the cracks.
  
Nor did the article mention the familiar sound of the A38 -the sirens- or the fact that for many of the residents, Alcoholism is in fact a career choice.
  
there was lots of praise for the Post Office, : "the lovely folk at the post office". Yet the article implied that walking and cycling were the way to get around.
 
Regular readers will know that the cycle lane is for short-stay visitors to the post office, while the recommended transport for the area is in fact a van.

On the topic of stokes croft vans, can we ask the driver of the red van turning right into Ashley Road at about 4:30pm today, monday Jul 2, what did that female pedestrian in the grey jacket do that merited you getting out and trying to start a fight with her? Pedestrians can damage your paintwork if they hit your van or wingmirrors, so we are sure that whatever she did it was deserved.

We were just suprised, watching it from our own van, that the first road-rage incident of the evening rush hour was starting that early on in the evening. Usually the fights don't kick off until after 5pm.

Summer Motorbikes

Summer on the Railway Path brings out the local yoof on their bikes. Wrong kind of bikes though....(video contains profanities).

Secret parking by the Arches

"RP" -our Gloucester Road correspondent, shows us some secret parking places:

FV55 PYO has been parking on the footpath round the back of the shops next to the disused toilets under the arches on the Gloucester road on a daily basis for well over a year. To be precise, the practice started at the same time that "Do 'Lil Coffee" opened next just next to the disused toilets next to the arches on the Gloucester Road. Not that anything should be read into this of course.

   


Now this is a great example of resourcefulness. The footpath here is wide and although bollards suggest that cars are not welcome on this pedestrian cut through onto Cromwell road the driver is often able
to leave plenty of room for both the car and those on foot. On other occasions, FV55PYO is joined by a second car (peculiarly this seems to coincide with times when Do 'Lil Coffee is doing a lot of business --
Saturday mornings for example).

Then it becomes a little more awkward for pedestrians who have to decide whether to risk damaging parked cars as they squeeze pushchairs, bikes and shopping past the cars or, probably more easily, abandon the footpath and take to the road instead. Anyway, we digress.


To reward this feat of ingenuity and long-standing service to resourceful parking, Bristol City Council now routinely fix yellow stickers to the windscreen FV55PYO. Here is one example from a little while ago. This recognition of success has obviously not gone unnoticed as are now many other luxury cars who feel they don't want to be missed out.

Double discrimination

While looking for a pavement to park on by templemeads, this sign caught our eye:
 
Just beneath the advertisement for the bristol-bath cycling& walking route, on a pavement with signs saying pedestrians are allowed to walk on it, there are two other signs

• A "no entry to bicycles sign"
• A sign saying "cyclists dismount and give way to pedestrians"

The latter was our favourite. Think about what it means.

It means anyone who has dismounted and is now pushing their bicycle has to give way to pedestrians.

Clearly it means that cyclists pushing their bicycles are not yet pedestrians, they are still cyclists endangering pedestrians by their very insistence on walking their bicycle towards templemeads station -perhaps to get to the railway path, perhaps even to get on a train.

Either way, it's nice to see that whoever owns Templemeads Station hates cyclists whether on their bicycles or on foot.

The "moment of madness" defence crops up in London

We see that in London a lorry driver managed to avoid any penalty for reversing over someone in a lorry with the reverse beep disabled, the reversing camera broken and the mirrors set up wrong - by playing the "moment of madness" defence:

Defence counsel Matthew Hardyman told the court his client had suffered from a “moment of madness”

There must be some legal symposium we must attend on "effective use of the 'moment of madness' defence", with speakers discussing how they used to explain various celebrities about engaging in a bit of paid or consensual sex with strangers -which is a key part of Stokes Croft's nightlife- or how they used it to explain some road-rage incident.

I you search for "told the court" and "moment of madness", it does seem to crop up surprisingly often.

In this particular case, however, we have a question for the defence: how you explain the failure of three separate safety devices as "a moment of madness", We'd love to know that -so the next time we get pulled over on the M4 roadworks for having defective lights, brakes, rear tyres and wing mirrors that are montpelier-normal, but which the traffic officer considered "missing".

Can you imagine explaining to the officer asking "why is your vehicle so unsafe" that the decision to drive from Stokes Croft to Birmingham in a vehicle in that state was "a moment of madness"?

It just wouldn't work, would it? MoM is the excuse for "being caught in-flagrante", a bit of road-rage, or "stabbing a relative to death".

The correct response when asked by the police why your van or lorry is unsafe is "I am a donor to the Conservative party and a part time magistrate". Works every time.