Wednesday 3 March 2010

Coverage

People email us at bristol.traffic at gmail.com and say our coverage focuses too much on the problems of the inner city, what about further out of town? Good point. The council is anti-car across the entire city.

Look how vehicles are forced to park on the pavement, here on Kendal Avenue, between Lockleaze and Filton Avenue. They are lucky to have a 4x4 like L467DPL (?), as the kerbs aren't very dropped here.

Park like this is tricky, but luckily the local driving schools like 2nd2none appear to offer an After you Pass lesson
in it  on Chedworth Road in their car WR08HXK
It is a skill needed, whether you drive a car or an BCC/NHS Bristol van like DA07EJF, forced onto the pavement so you can make a delivery onto Wordsworth Road.
We welcome coverage across the entire city, to show how this persecution knows no bounds

6 comments:

2nd2none Driving School said...

Again you can clearly see if the driving school car was parked on the road it would cause an obstruction because of the vehicle opposite. These roads were not built for all the cars that park on them, unfortunately many owners dont have a choice.

Bristol Traffic said...

You are right. The option of parking on the same side of the road as the other vehicles would have forced the owners to walk over the road, which could be dangerous.

We appreciate how your driving school recognises the harsh reality of Bristol and knows that relevant bit of the Highway Code -section 244, says only

"You MUST NOT park partially or wholly on the pavement in London, and SHOULD NOT do so elsewhere unless signs permit it. ".

The point being, SHOULD NOT is weaker than MUST NOT, and if the alternative to parking on the pavement is walking over the road, then, well, what choice does anyone have?

Quercus said...

The key issue here is the ROK van forcing the 2nd2none Driving School car to park on the pavement.

ROK is currently in administration, so this particular obstacle is likely to be removed quite soon. Which should help.

Unfortunately neither Bristol City Council, or the NHS look like going out of business in the near future, so there may still be perfectly good reasons for learning pavement parking as part of the driving curriculum.

2nd2none Driving School said...

The reason the instructor chooses to park on the side of his property is because he wants to keep the car where he can see it as unfortunately in this area like most others there a few individuals that like to vandalise things that are not theres and pick off anything that isnt bolted down. The street lighting in this road and many roads in this area isnt that great and the further away it is parked the more likely he wouldnt notice any crime being committed to the car in question. Just like where I live and had a brand new car keyed on every panel because I chose to park it properly across the road out of site one night. This isnt an excuse but a genuine reason of a will to protect our property the best we can. And as for the highway code, this is a rule book that was written in 1931 with approximately 2 million cars on the road and the motor car being a non essential commodity, not the
27 million cars that now exist on this small island. There simply isnt enough road space for driving or parking and Bristol has one of the worst managed road systems of any city's.

SteveL said...

If you look at the overall content of this page, you can see that the worst parked vehicle is in fact the LR Discovery completely blocking the pavement. There is no justification for that other than sheer selfish laziness, or a belief that pavements are for parking. Your driver's vehicle is only 50% on the pavement and still providing options for passing. However it does set a bad example, one which Bristol Traffic contributors are glad to share with the rest of the world.

Any of us who do own a car and park it in the city have to wonder about its state the next day, let us assure you that in montpelier -where a stretch of free pavement outside your own house is an unrealistic dream- the fuel line cutting and petrol theft is a common problem on the Vauxhall brand, while the only place someone stole my Astra was outside a house in clifton. You have to accept that risk as the price of owning a car in the city.

And as for the highway code, this is a rule book that was written in 1931 with approximately 2 million cars on the road and the motor car being a non essential commodity, not the 27 million cars that now exist on this small island. There simply isnt enough road space for driving or parking and Bristol has one of the worst managed road systems of any city's.

We would argue that a motor car is still a non-essential commodity within a city, which Bristol technically is. As a driving school you may have helped instruct drivers to drive safely, but if they have picked up that attitude "they highway code is obsolete" then we worry. Can we also note that the Highway code gets updated regularly, which is why it has sections on things which did not exist in 1931 -zebra crossings, motorways, roundabouts- and that you cannot dismiss it merely because it began in 1931. It is like dismissing the entire UK legal system because the Magna Carta is about eight hundred years old. As for the "worst managed road systems of any city's", actually, it is fairly car-friendly compared to London or Edinburgh. There is no central resident parking area to discourage commuting by car, there is no charging to drive into the core, there is no Low-Emission-Zone. If you feel that you spend too much time stuck in traffic jams it implies that (1) you haven't spent any time trying to drive and park in London and (2) you may be making some mistakes in your choice of transport mode.

If there isn't enough space for driving or parking, why are you encouraging more people to drive and then park on pavements? That is taking away pedestrian space?

Unknown said...

Wadda muppet this 2nd2none Driving School is! Are they really offering those excuses? Wow! I thought they were supposed to be a driving school? Saying the highway code isn't relevant? Setting an example for people to park badly? Then, top make matters worse, justifying that parking stating concerns over safety of material possessions over people's safety?

Wow. What a stunning example of blinkered ignorance there! Avoid this motor school at all costs!

(NB. These are my own views and are not intended to be miss-construed as having any association with this blog.)