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
We got sent this video for review of an event at 09:10 this morning, just off Park Row. And what a lovely video it is.
As you can see, the tax dodger descends St Michael's Hill then goes to the front of the road, waiting for a green light and then heading off along Perry Road with the goal of turning into Lodge Street and so descend to The Centre. While they are trying to do this, a road tax payer driving the premium Audi CF54UWV comes up Lower Park Row and starts to pull out. The tax-dodger expresses some concern here and then has to take evasive action by getting up on the pavement, before pulling in front of the Audi where he stops and expresses some more concern to the driver.
The driver says "I'm Sorry, I didn't see you". We suspect that some more discussions would have taken place if the cars behind hadn't started sounding their horns -nobody died, no need for a post-mortem- so the cyclist sets off. The Audi is no longer behind the bicycle at the bottom, implying it has turned into Lodge Place and the office parking therein.
The tax dodger then proceeds to make life hard for the car behind by giving way to other cars, rather than recognise that from their actions on the horn, they are clearly also important and in a hurry.
Here's our review
The Tax Dodger is to be praised for wearing a helmet. The helmet camera, well, it provides entertainment.
If they had waited behind all the cars on St Michaels Hill, they would not have been the first road user to approach Lodge Street. This would have reduce the risk of collision, as the taxpayer would have had something larger to spot. Furthermore, the MPV sounding its horn would not have been held up, as it was waiting on St Michael's Hill too -and would have been ahead of the cyclist.
There is a small dotted line bike lane on Park Row. This would have caused the collision to happen earlier, and so not hold up the MPV.
Getting on the pavement as a form of evasive action is illegal. If they had a registration number, they'd have been reported to the police for it.
If they had been hit, their lack of third party insurance would have placed all the costs of repair to an expensive vehicle on that driver.
After the incident, the actions of being nice to all cars pulling out was insensitive. They had already held up at least three important people who had paid for the right to be there; this just made things worse.
If they hadn't been on a bicycle, none of this would have happened.
We are also going to discuss the actions of the female Audi driver.
Although playing the "I'm not going to look" gambit does help in some pullout negotiations, in this situation we'd have sounded our horn to make clear we were coming through.
If you drive an old van you have better negotiating power.
It's clearly a fast car, you could have looked at the bike, then done the same action aggressively enough that they wouldn't have caught up with you.
Never, never, never say "I'm sorry, I didn't see you". Your insurance company will hate you for it, and in a world of universal cameras, your actions will be permanently associated with CF54UWV, Bristol and your apparent place of work, Lodge Place, for as long as google's servers retain the data.
The correct thing to say in this situation is usually something like "get out the way, I pay for the roads and you don't". Sometimes we also demand they have insurance, though given our van's current insurance state, that would be a bit hypocritical. Speaking of insurance, we hope that the cyclist does not contact your insurers and provide them with some hard data on your driving techniques. That is one of the reasons why we do not insure our vehicle.
Nevertheless: We in the Bristol Traffic Project salute the driver of CF54UWV for taking a personal stand against making Bristol city a safe and friendly place to ride a bicycle! Your single-handed actions should be celebrated! We hope that all other cyclists heading along this road -and there are clearly many of a weekday morning- will recognise that you are important and give way appropriately.
We are aware that we are the highest ranked site when you search blogspot for alloy wheels, and therefore that a comment with some banal chat and back links to your own site would help your page rank. However, as well as using nofollow links to remove them from google's PageRank scores, we have a policy that says if you spam us with attempted to links, we only make fun of you. Therefore, please accept this posting as a gift, but note that the nofollow tag above renders your link worthless and all that you will get is more spam to your email address. Sorry.
There is no point trying to push alloy wheel services to our readers, despite our broad readership in Bristol, because (a) you have a Southampton postcode and are therefore unimportant, and (b) we don't think alloy wheels have a place in the city.
Every driver who has alloy wheels values their wheels. Not only does this prevent them doing operations in the city, it holds up other traffic. Takes this video of the bottom of St Michael's Hill from last month.
The car in front of us is waiting to turn slide into the left turn lane -which has a green light onto Park Row. But it cannot do that as the car in front of it values their wheels too much to scrape against the kerb or to commit more aggressively and get both wheels entirely on the pavement, and they still have a driver-side wingmirror to lose. The selfish decision of the first car to have alloy wheels not only slows them down, it slows down the rest of the city's traffic. And this is on a Sunday! Imagine how much congestion one selfish alloy-wheel owning outsider would cause on a busy weekday morning!
Drivers who value their vehicle's bodywork and paintwork are as much an inconvenience to us locals as pedestrians on zebra crossings and cyclists pootling along. You may not realise this as you live in the provinces and dream of day trips to Portsmouth where you can see three cars in a row, but we city folk know the harsh truth: from a game-theory perspective, alloy wheels place you at a disadvantage. They are easily damaged and, as they are a visible status symbol, everyone else sees that you value your car, therefore are more likely to give way on high conflict roads, such as here, the Horfield Road/St Michael's Hill junction.
Please do not bother posting any more spam advertisement comments, as we will only continue to criticise you for your naive lack of understanding of modern driving techniques and issues, as well as your complete ignorance of game theory and its application in city driving.
One more video from our tax dodging cyclist, who we sent on a mission to get crushed by a bus on Whiteladies Road. For some reason they survived.
Anyway, here is the video. Whiteladies Road from Lower Redland Road down to the triangle, Park Row and then towards Jamaica Street and Stokes Croft.
This just reinforces our previous conclusion: that during peak hours the causes of delays on our route are not pedestrians, they are in fact the big traffic jam around the Triangle. This time, continuing past the Triangle, we can see that the traffic sources there are in fact vehicles heading up Park Street or those coming in down Park Row. Which we believe is our inalienable right to do, and even with this bus network, we will continue to do.
Why then, do they want to mess around with the pedestrian crossings, the left turn by the downs into Redland Hill, or the right turn out of Cotham Hill -one that actually works well in peak hours because the pedestrians are triggering the crossings? That doesn't mean they shouldn't need a license, pay road tax and be insured, but that sometimes they have a place in our world. We just think there should be slightly less of them, and we should be exempt from stopping for them at zebra crossings.
The usual complainers will be whining about vehicles like this van, stopped in the Park Row bike lane. They are misguided
The bike lane has dashes -it's only advisory and any vehicle is allowed in. It's a hint only.
The double yellow lines have no restrictions on waiting, only parking.
The driver is parked there to make a phone call.
Behind the van there are a line of parked cars, so nobody is going to run into the back of it.
They aren't taking up that much pavement, and by parking that way they make it easier for bicycles as well as cars to get past.
Which would the troublemakers rather have -a van waiting legally in a purely advisory bike lane to make a phone call, or the driver to drive while actually talking on the phone? By pulling over, this driver is in fact being far safer than anyone who drives round talking on a hands free phone, according to the latest research -and way better than anyone trying to text.
Certainly we in the Bristol Traffic Project have had some near misses while trying to post some of our articles from an iphone while driving. Such near misses are unwelcome, as they give the bus company which employs us a bad reputation.
A press release from the cycling campaign reaches our inbox.
The Bristol Cycling Campaign wishes to extend its deepest sympathies to the family and friends of the cyclist who died following a collision with a lorry on Winterstoke Road on Tuesday August 11.
This tragedy is part of a series of bicycle/lorry collisions in the city over the past week.
Thursday August 6th, A collision at the junction of Perry Road and St Michael's Hill, left the cyclist in a serious condition in the Bristol Royal Infirmary.
Tuesday August 11th The junction of Winterstoke Road and Brunel Way. The cyclist, struck by a Mercedes Sprinter van, died.
Tuesday August 11th Old Market. A DAF lorry cab turning left collided with a bicycle outside the Evening Post. Again, serious injury -this time pelvic, leg and head injuries, and again, another customer for the Bristol Royal Infirmary.
Wednesday August 12thStokes Croft/Ashley Road - a female cyclist left with a suspected broken leg.
This week of tragedy comes exactly three months after two teenage children were killed walking in the city by hit and run drivers in separate incidents.
The Bristol Cycling Campaign calls for Bristol Council to come up with a design for the city's roads that ensures that pedestrians and cyclists can get to their home, work or school without having to travel in fear for their lives.
It is impossible for Bristol Council's targets of doubling cycling to be achieved without increasing the numbers of collisions, unless there is a step change in the way that all of us in the city treat the most vulnerable road users.
Here of some examples of ways that we could improve road safety in the city:
Bristol must follow Portsmouth's lead of slowing down the speed limits on the approaches to the city, to stop drivers coming straight off 70mph roads and into the narrow streets of the city -and to stop them speeding up as they get closer to the motorway.
Roads, and especially junctions, need to be designed to reduce the risk of collisions. As a specific example, the Stokes Croft/Ashley Road collision involved a bike lane which is on the left side of a left-turn only lane. The collision here is not "an accident", it is the inevitable consequence of the design of the road.
As lorries appear to be disproportionately involved in the recent incidents, Bristol Council needs a plan to make their movements less hazardous to other road users. In London, for example, Transport for London is running a special cycle/lorry share-the-road training and publicity campaign.
Everyone needs to be encouraged to attend the Council-supported cycle training courses. As well as teaching cyclists how to cope with dangerous road designs, they will give drivers better understanding of the dangers that cyclists face.
Martin McDonnell, secretary of the Bristol Cycling Campaign said: "With rising obesity levels, congestion and road pollution, encouraging cycling is more important than ever. We call on the Council to fulfil the CyclingCity vision by making the city safe to cycle around."
We wish a speedy and full recovery to all the Bristolians who are currently in hospital because they chose to cycle around a cycling city. We also wish to express our appreciation to the emergency services, who have responded excellently in all these incidents.
The Evening Post is reporting that a cyclist ended up under a turning lorry at the Park Row/St Michael's Hill Junction. It is handy for the BRI, and while they have a broken thigh bone, they are apparently going to survive, which is good.
The E.P comments section is the usual mess of assumptions and abuse, but there is also commentary from someone who was there, which we reprint in its entirety
I saw the aftermath but not the actual accident. I was waiting to cross the road at the traffic lights just up from the St Michaels Hill junction, the traffic lights were changing and the lorry was one of the last vehicles to go past me and was turning left up towards St Michaels Hill. The next thing I heard was a massive crushing sound - like a massive coke can - which of course turned out to be the bicycle - and heard screams, I looked round to see a horrible scene, one that you never ever want to see.
I believe that the cyclist saw the traffic lights start to change and went to cross the junction at the bottom of the hill and didn't see the lorry coming around the corner. The lorry obviously didn't see the cyclist either...so blame probably lies both ways.
Wishing the man a speedy recovery, I'm just glad it wasn't more serious.
I expect the truck driver is scarred as even if he was partly to blame - to get out of his cab and find somebody under your wheels screaming in pain is not how he would have wanted to start his day.
Also in the traffic news section, we are informed that on this Thursday evening, that the A38 is closed between Aztec West/the M4/M5 and the Southmead/BAe roundabout. Bomb squad called out for a suspicious package at Rolls Royce, apparently. Looking out the window over the North Fringe sprawl, the A4174 ring-road is congested no worse than normal for a weekday evening.
It's not shown on the latest cycling city maps, but as it as the same bicycle-with-a-red-ring logos as spotted on the Portsmouth sea front, it is clear that this is part of the initiative. The lifts at Trenchard Street car park provide a key service to getting new and unfit cyclists around the city -they provide a route from the centre to Park Row that avoids any hill work Drop down to Trenchard street, go over to the lifts. Floor 8 is the exit level. If you are unsure, aim high, so you have a bit of downhill to do, rather than uphill.
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