Montpelier: is our work done?

Youtube referred us to this (nonembeddable) video of an eight year old doing the school run by bicycle from York Road to Colston Primary School.

01:32 P232YEU. Seen them.
03:46 Eagle Coaches coach waiting in the bus lane. Seen them.
04:45 Family walking across the road. Seen them too.

When even independent videos include content that we already have on our web site, we can conclude that our attempts to build a mass-surveillance infrastructure out of google's datacentre facilities and community contributions are successful. At least for Montpelier, Stokes Croft, Cheltenham Road and bits nearby.

Does this mean it is time to retire: Our work is done? Maybe. But first, time to visit some other parts of the city.

Welcome to Clifton Week at Bristol Traffic!

Monty week: someone's getting let down

This was a shock to us. A space big enough for three cars outside that fine drinking establishment, the Beaufort. Very tempting to pull the Bristol Traffic white van in there on this weekday morning and have a few beers. But who should indicate and then pull in before we get a chance to execute the plan? A driving instructor.

We understand why there is a space -it's the Friday before the bank holiday weekend, and many people are off in their cars and vans. But whoever is paying for the driving lesson is expecting to learn the skills for the city, our city, a city where a gap four vehicles long is so rare that it will go down in Montpelier folklore, like the time someone managed to get a stolen car a fair distance over the footbridge from Hurlingham Road.

While technically legal, parking this way isn't going to give the paying customer the training they need. Drivers in this city need to park two wheels up on the pavement! You need to pull out without indicating, as game theory implies the enemy -and every other road user is the enemy- will behave differently if they think you are looking when you pull out.

Our reporter apparently told the instructor of for his behaviour, and we shall report this incident to the city's driving instructor authority. The 2nd2None driving school is normally impeccable.

Roundabout work

There's nothing more frustrating than being held up at a roundabout by one of those idiots who doesn't pull out just because there is a bit of oncoming traffic they are required to give way to. This usually happens when there's a police car or an L-plate driver up ahead.

How do you cope in this situation? S937JHY for JGSF removals shows what to do.

You switch into the left lane, go past the right hand lane then pull out in front of them. You mustn't signal when doing this, as it would give the game away.

Now, some troublemaker will say "isn't that lane OK if you are going straight on?", for which the answer is: only if there is a straight on. This is the mini-roundabout at the junction of York Street -where the van is- Sussex Place to the left, and Arley Hill to the right. There is no straight on. What the van has managed to do is sneak past about five or six slow moving cars and pull out aggressively, so coping with the coward at the front who wasn't being aggressive enough. Fast, effective, not that illegal.

Interfering

Do these subversives defacing billboards in St Werburgh's not realise how essential car sales are to the European economy?

They might think they are being witty and trying to improve the local environment, but it is at the expense of the rest of the continent.