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.

Followup on the "R242AAC incident"

We've been keeping an eye on the Times's Cities Safe for Cycling campaign.


We weren't that worried, because their manifesto was all about infrastructure. Such projects take years and can be put off on the grounds of the "the economy is in crisis -all we can afford is more bypasses".

What they had left out was the one thing that could have made our life tangibly worse straight away -demanding anything resembling enforcement of traffic laws. Today we can drive into ASLs on the phone, speed around the city, park in bike lanes, sound our horn behind cyclists. The underpeople may view all this as harassment, but it is what we need to do to get by in our city. There isn't room in the city for bike lanes, not when short term parking is so critical; stopping behind ASLs costs us seconds when the lights change, and mobile phones reduce the cost of congestion.

We need to break these outdated highway code laws to keep the city moving!

What's  concerned us recently is not just that the times is giving cyclists more publicity, but that they are slowly starting to look at enforcement:

• Put onus on drivers, says cycling world champion Mark Cavendish.
• Tougher sentences demanded against drivers who kill cyclists

That's a danger -a legal system that actually enforces the outdated rules. Of course, for that we will need judges that care about cyclists -which we are fortunately a long way off from having, and a police force that forwards cases to them.

The latter is something we all fear, obviously. Which is why it is so reassuring to look at the Cycling Silk's blog and see that in London, the police, sensibly, refuse to do anything. Indeed, the unit set to to focus on road safety, Roadpeace, are leading the way in this refusal to do anything.

Similarly, up in Glasgow, the one surviving cyclist, Magnatom, has actually been surprised to discover that the police won't do anything about HGVs nearly running him over at roundabouts.

It is critical that this unofficial policy remains. The growing popularity of helmet and handlebar cameras means that the things we used to do with impunity, now become videoed and stuck up online. If the police acted on these videos, then it would be worse than when the speed cameras were turned on.

Which is why today, we have some bad news for all important people in a hurry. Bristol Police do seem to care about the cyclists.

As regular readers may recall, last October we covered an incident where the car R242AAC nearly ran over a cyclist at a mini-roundabout.
 




The cyclist had complained to the police, who were trying to track the driver down. However, the driver had been successfully using the "don't reply to the letters" gambit, along with the "hide under the sofa when the police come by" tactic. It looked like they would get away with it.

Sadly for him, just before the time limit ran out, the police uploaded his registration number to the "cars to stop" list  on all the police cars, and within a week he'd been pulled over, forced to acknowledge he had been the driver, and pulled into court for "driving without due care and attention"

Now, at this point the normal my word vs their word argument would come out, and since the cyclist is trying to prove guilt, it's hard for them to make any defensible claims about our driving. And here is where those helmet cameras really hurt.

The driver had done what we'd do: deny all charges. But as soon as the video was shown to them, they realised that the usual denial tactic was doomed, and changed their plea to guilty.

We'll cover this in more detail shortly, but the key thing to bear in mind is this:

Not only are cyclists filming their journeys, the police in Bristol are acting on their complaints.

This is chilling. At least is hasn't got as far as London or Glasgow yet -maybe we should all move there.

HGV vs Clifton Vale

While doing one of our regular clifton deliveries, a quick detour to check out the road where the HGV got wedged a while back.

Yes, there is a new HGV shaped dent on the house at the top of Clifton Vale.


Looking up, this is the view the drive would have had.
 

What's not clear is where was he going: left towards clifton, or bearing rightwards. The latter is possibly marked as a straight line on the satnav, which it is, provided your car is nimble enough to swerve round and through the oncoming lane. Hatchbacks can do this, but things like estate cars have trouble.
 
  
What the HGV driver was thinking we don't know, especially as the hill is about 20% all the way up. At what point did they start to have doubts -and yet still decide to continue.

This is just going to lead to street clutter as every road from Hotwells to Cliftonwood is now going to have a sign prohibiting lorries -which can only inconvenience those of us who do know how to get our toys through the rat-runs.

sport: it's about sponsorship and consumption, not participation

While out looking for early evening customers of our "discreet adult entertainment" portfolio, we were disappointed to see that Ashton Court was "out of play" this weekend, on account of a 12 hour mountain bike race.

These people have to recognise that actually participating in sport is not what the sponsors of major events such as the Euro2012 cup or the london olympics actually want.
  
Every pair of buttocks on a saddle is one less arse in front of a TV, watching advertisers, getting ideas of which new consumer goods to buy.
  

Consumer purchases are the key to kickstarting the economy, and these people, by cycling for 12 hours a day, are not doing their bit

Hook work by N4CSP

A contributor "SP" sends us a video along with the commentary

The grey car, N4CSP, is clearly in a hurry to get to the Callington Road Hospital, adjacent to the Tesco in Brislington. Unfortunately, I am about to cross the junction they wish to turn into, and so like any right-minded person who wants to exterminate another useless tax dodger, they wait until the last second to accelerate past then cut across to make the left turn.

This impressive action saved them a whole 4 seconds on their journey time, enabling them to no doubt secure a much deserved parking spot.


Interestingly, Callington Road Hospital is for people with mental health issues (no, not cyclists, proper weirdos), although I was unable to tell if the driver of N4 CSP was a member of staff in a hurry to beat up some of the patients, or a patient desperate to secure a fresh supply of Prozac.

Parking in and near hospitals are a controversial issue -the EP recently printed a lovely letter by Brian Rogers of Kingsdown , which we have covered, in which the way that fit and healthy cyclists get in the way of people trying to get to hospital:

These tax-payer funded lycra clad louts have spent the last 14 years "saving" the planet by not using cars as they abuse anyone who must use a car for such essential travel as work or hospital visits.

Well, "SP, you may have met Mr Rogers himself. At least this time he wasn't held up.  As for the claim that cyclists aren't "proper wierdos", we would dispute that. Grown men do not normally dress in plastic bags.

Reader's letters

we are forwarded a letter from "luke".

From: luke
Date: 10 June 2012 11:18

what the deal with that blog?
is it written by sub-human Jeremy Clarkson wannabee's with sense of humour bypasses and a desire to kill people on bikes? I only read a few entries and came across 3 express wishes that people on bikes were run over. WTF?!!
sad sad fuckers

Luke, your opinions are noted. You may considers us cyclist-hating psychopaths but we try to be consistent with the rest of the local media. As for wannabes, yes it really frustrates us.

Look at this BBC report on cycling in London. Full of defensible data about how to improve cities. And who do they wheel out to explain why Britain's cities are going to stay the way they are? Jeremy C? Not worth his time? Us: we'd love to get the money from appearing plus the fame. No, they pull in Stirling Moss to patronise them.

If the BBC wanted ill-informed opinions by people who don't have a clue -we charge less than stirling moss and tell the hard truth in a far more entertaining way that Stirling M explaining to the cyclists that its time to grow up, put away the toys and buy a grown up car.

We'd have been far more controversial, and made sure that those campaigners and MP would never come on TV again. And afterwards we'd get the thank you call from Boris saying "thanks, now the elections over those troublemakers think I'd actually fulfil my promises. We need to start setting their expectations right".

But they didn't' come to us, so we are sulking. Your letter has shown us that at least one person appreciates us.

Thank you Luke!

FA54OEF -truly impressive parking

It's not often we have to call out someone in the Stokes Croft area for actually parking in a way that even we think is selfish and lazy, but today we have to say this little mini, FA54OEF, manages to pull off a parking option that overwhelms even us -and as a regular parker in the area, that's hard to do.

Notice the mini is parked vaguely near a corner -"cornerish-parking", on the wrong side of the road, here at the junction of Dove Street and Nine-tree hill



It's got its hazards on, though as it didn't move for the ten minute period needed to get through or Sunday morning breakfast (Breakfast at Cafe Kino washed down with some White Lightening at Turbo Island), this is more of a long-stay than a quick pause.

 
By parking with the lights on, it gives anyone cycling down ninetree that fear that the car is about to pull out and turn over them, especially with the position right on the corner.
-  
For anyone heading up the hill, it's the same. This car looks like it's about to come out, and it also destroys all visibility of anything coming up. It's  a single parking decision that makes it tangibly more threatening to cyclists going up and down ninetree, which apparently is popular because the "safety" outweighs the 25% gradient. Lucky that FA54OEF is here to set the record straight.


One little complaint though. The way the car has parked makes it impossible for important people to get their car into Dove St without swerving into the opposite lane, a lane which has reduced visibility from the car itself, as all cars are of course approaching from downhill.

This is why we think the person who parked this car is, well, selfish and lazy. There's room behind the mini to reverse and park; there's room on the proper side of the road, there's an entire lane on the northern side of ninetree. It's a sunday -no parking will be enforced, so why park exactly on the corner?

On a weekday, we'd understand, but on a weekend? It doesn't make any sense and doesn't take the needs of other people in cars into account.

Impressive, but fundamentally stupid

Planning the School Run

Driving our van around Bristol we've noticed that the biggest problem for school run mums is pesky cyclists jumping red lights and riding on pavements.

We're really pleased therefore, that the extension to St John's Primary School, using Redland Police Station as an Annex will stamp out these tax dodgers - well at least in one direction.

Bristol's PFI schools provider, Skanska, has submitted a fantastic planning application for the Annex which will eliminate the connection between Whiteladies Road and Elgin Park for cyclists travelling from East to West. We've been wondering for some time whether responsible, sustainably oriented international corporates such as Skanska read Bristol Traffic and take our comments to heart. Now we know. At last there is a scheme which will allow responsible urban four wheel drivers to take their children to school by car without even having to run a cyclist off the road - because there won't be any. Better still, there will be lots of space for lorries to get down past the school after making deliveries to Tesco and others on the corner of Whiteladies Road.

What is really interesting about this scheme is that by denying cyclists a sensible route from Redland to the main shopping area of Whiteladies Road, we could be taking them off the road for good. Then maybe they will see the light and buy proper cars and pay for the roads like the rest of us.

Any foolish cyclists that remain after these proposals are given planning permission will be forced to go up a very steep hill instead (that'll teach them), or negotiate some difficult right turns where we expect they will be knocked off their bikes. The exact proposals are below, but the planning application can also be can be viewed online

Skanska is proposing a brilliant solution for the motorist. We'll be recommending them to the Association of British Drivers if they ask us if we know a good builder.

Films@59 making Cotham Hill a Shared Space

It's lovely to see a company -here Films at 59- taking on an idea like "shared space" and embracing it.

Here on a weekday we can see them doing it perfectly.

The white van X548DJR over the yellow lines and the buildout mark the entry to the zone

Further on, the paveparked car LD07NYF, the van KU59DLJ that's claimed the driveway  and the white vanRD04NXU  half up on the pavement rounds it off -this area is shared with pedestrians and cyclists -we hope they appreciate this sharing!
 
The cycle logo on the floor shows this is national cycle route 4 -introducing cyclists to the shared space concept -and the forced swerve makes them slow down for the shared zone

The way they've managed to remove all visibility acts as a lovely piece of traffic calming, as even cars have to slow down.
 
Congratulations, Films at 59, for this selfless action.

The last time we had some coverage of this shared space area, there was a blip in traffic with a referrer of some server in the films at 59 domain -as if someone saw the coverage, agreed that having one van block the pavement made it harder for other vans to drive up it, and raised the issues with their colleagues.

Clearly the "shared space" approach is the solution to this problem.

Free Cabot Circus and Primark Parking

People are always hitting this site looking for free parking near Primark and Cabot Circus -here's a new one.
 
As this is in the centre of the bearpit roundabout, you will have to somehow sneak through the crash barriers to get in.

But how to get out?

Street BBQ at Cotham Porter Stores

Readers may expect us to complain that some people on foot were taking up valuable parking spaces. by having an in-street barbecue outside a pub. Not so
 

1. Cotham Porter Stores is a well known purvey of ciders at a very low price -£2.20 a pint at the right time of day.
2. There's enough space left to pull the van up and have a couple of pints or more before carrying on with the day's deliveries.

Rather than complain, we joined in.

Silver on the Croft

Having heard rumours that one of our vehicles is silver, someone inquired as to whether the ford focus in the bike lake outside Pizza King in Stokes Croft is ours.

No. ours is the open topped toy on the other side of the road and slightly closer to town

It makes a much more positive statement there.
 
And there is nowhere better to spend a sunny afternoon than keeping an eye on your car from a street cafe in the croft.

Roundheads and Cavaliers

Over in Clifton, Leigh Road has been rebranded "jubileigh road"

No doubt they will having a street party.

We shall be down at Stokes Croft, obviously -though the exact festivities are not yet planned.

We do recall last year's impromptu street festival on Stokes Croft during the Royal Wedding.
 
The police closed the road to help people enjoy this national holiday, while they themselves were invited into one of the local households for a cup of tea -"Telepathic Heights", was its name.

The wearing of helmets, so as to give this, our New Model Army, "Round Heads", was clearly a conscious decision to refer to the battle over the nature of our country: one in which the king ruled by divine right vs one that belonged to the population.
 

The siege of Bristol took place in this very area -Cromwell Road in the far distance being where the original roundheads besieged the city, Priory Fort at the top of Ninetree Hill kept them out of Stokes Croft by way of its cannons, and Bristol remained a royalist stronghold.

That is, until it fell, and Cromwell went on to behead one of the ancestors of the crown -this led to the free and democratic society we have today, when anyone who went to either of the universities can become its leader.

Happy Jubilee! Celebrate!

Mountain Rescue at Avon Gorge

Thursday Lunchtime in Clifton. A fire engine nonchalantly parked across the Clifton approach to the Suspension Bridge stops anyone from getting through.


A couple of cyclists are experiencing what it is like to cross the bridge without someone important in a Mercedes driving 6" behind them.


 
Why the closure? looks like the fire brigade are rescuing someone off the Avon Gorge, just to the side of Giant's Cave Buttress (you can see the ropes over the lighter limestone)
 
The climber seems be being evacuated from the bottom of the climb.
We hope all is well.

(PS: for anyone thinking of using these photos, this particular are released under the CC 'with attribution' license, meaning the site "Bristol Traffic" and URL http://bristolcars.blogspot.com should be used. To publish without crediting us is a copyright issue)

This is why we use a van

Over in London the militant tax dodgers are asking the hard question "why are lorries and HGVs allowed in our inner cities?" An interesting question, but here's another one " why do tax-dodgers cycle on the roads that the HGVs have to use? There are plenty of back roads. In Bristol you can recognise them because they have hills on them. If the cyclists go down Gloucester Road or the A4 and say "there are lorries there", well, there are alternatives: the hills of Montpelier, Totterdown and Clifton. HGVs do not normally go there.

Except today, when the BBC has some footage of an HGV getting wedged in the hairpin at the top of Clifton Vale.

We've looked at this problem before.

1. On the way up, if you can't see anyone in front of you, go for it. 
2. On the way down, hang back enough to get a view, and go for it if nobody is obviously coming up. But swing wide before even beginning the turn in, or you won't be lined up to take the next corner

You can't do this in an HGV -which is why we deliver our "adult entertainment products" to the Clifton area in the official Bristol Traffic white van. It takes the corners, and if it gets a couple of scrapes on the way -not only does the van not look any worse, but it doesn't leave anything more incriminating than some white paint.

Don't get stressed over paveparking. Have a coffee

Good people of Clifton, especially pram pushing parents going to the Zoo. What better way to relax and unwind from the stresses of walking, than a refreshing coffee from the Clifton Coffee company.

Taking postive advertising and paveparking to a new level.

Bristol's answer to Cycle Lane Parking

At last, a solution to Bristol's traffic problems.

Let's just hope the council has ordered enough.

Gratuitous Abuse of a Bus Driver

One of our regular commentors -and the sole "outed" barge owner in our audience- YZ09AFD- is heard in this video abusing a bus driver down at the centre.

The harsh truth is that bit of the Centre is designed for buses. Not bicycles, or that one-way-at-a-time light at the end would have a bicycle bypass, or at least respond to waiting bicycles, bicycles whose owners then recklessly cycle through red lights.

It's not designed for pedestrians either, otherwise the ped crossing at the other end would actually do something useful.

It is for buses only, it radiates that fact, and the way they treat "DaveW" or anyone else selfish enough to cycle down it is entirely justified. We just wish there were more minicab firms in the city to keep these underpeople in their place.

Zen & the art of using bus & cycle lanes

Bus lanes were in the news this past week with the MD of Addison Lee openly encouraging his drivers to break the law in London and use bus lanes. Addison Lee is also a motorbike courier firm and they donate large amounts of money to the Conservative Party who don't like bus lanes. The M4 bus lane was scrapped, thus creating a lovely new traffic jam into our capital, just in time for the Olympics.

More recently, Mayor Boris opened up the bus lanes in London for motorbikes to use bus lanes and Transport for London has issued powered two wheel users with lots of lovely 'guidelines' and 'rules' for them to follow. Funny how Boris Johnson had his 2008 election campaign partly financed by...guess who?. It looks like his 2012 campaign is being propped up by AL too, and red Ken has taken a pot shot at him.

So why is this relevant to Bristol?. Well, motorbikes have been allowed to use bus lanes here since the mid 90's, often cited by Boris as a shining example of how it can work. In fact, here's a little video of how it does work. And here's how to use the Bristol bus lanes (that is, the ones for very, very thin buses):
Riding motorbikes starts at an early age and it's vital to get some training in before hitting the Bristol streets. Where better to start than an old railway line?. You can get some speed up and improve your skills by weaving in and out of tax dodging cyclists and pedestrians.

View from the Top... deck of the No.49

Fascinating driver habits can be observed from the top deck of buses. Here we can see someone who barged into the bus lane ahead of the bus, casually ignoring two No Left Turn signs in their hurry to get to Morrisons, presumably for the weekly shop. Obviously, shopping is more important than any pedestrian unlucky enough to be crossing the left road at the time.

Dowry square parking

It's going to become even harder to park in Dowry Square if the council have their way and rob us of most of the parking spaces. When that happens, it'll be even more imperative that we squeeze our cars into the tiniest of spaces, as so ably demonstrated by X524EJE.

Not the "moment of madness" defence again

The Former Bristol Evening Post has an article about someone disqualified from driving, caught by the police's ANPR camera in an unmarked car and then going for a sprint round Hanham, nearly hitting an oncoming cyclist and then crashing into bollards.

IT "was a moment of madness"

Some observations

1. There's nothing wrong with nearly hitting an oncoming cyclist, in fact is a common and necessary operation in our cities.
2. Bollards are the cause of many of the accidents in our cities.
3. ANPR camera recognition hooked up to insurance and registration checkers are another example of the surveillance and nanny state at work. That's a bit like those in house baby-intercoms, for anyone  wondering what a "surveillance nanny state is".

Our key observation is this though: that moment of madness defence is getting ever  more boring. 

If you look at its origin, being caught in engaging in consensual sex in a public place -and who doesn't do that from time to time?- what it really means is "it is unfortunate that this particular time  I was caught by a police force who consider what I was doing to be illegal". The probability of being caught with your kit off in public is surprisingly low, based on our experiments, so the M-o-M defence is pretty weak there. We say:  own up and say 'so what?'.

Which is precisely what the driver should have done here. Disqualified, no insurance, unregistered car, driving badly: so what?

As it is the judged has recognised the "moment of madness" defence is wearing thin:

 "This was more than a moment of madness. It was six or seven minutes of extremely bad driving. It's pure luck you didn't injure or kill someone."

Again, six to seven minutes of extremely bad driving where it pure luck you didn't injure or kill someone? That's the school run summarised in a single sentence.

Evening Post bingo: the phrases

The next step in our Evening Post Bingo project is determining which phrases are the most frequent phrases that appear in the sentences.

Here they are, all phrases of three or more words that appear more than once in our set of articles. Abbreviations such as "I'm" have been expanded to I am.

With these results the bingo card generation is trivial -just strip out some duplicates -lots of "I am sure" and then turn the rest into cards for people to play with. Rather than do that ourselves, the readers are instructed to pick five of these, and, when they see the next Evening Post article on cycling, play Bingo!

The first person to win all of their chosen phrases and declare this in the article's comments gets fifteen minutes free parking in the Stokes Croft cycle lane! Outside Ritas!

"on the pavement", 12
"in the city", 7
"the number of", 7
"a lot of", 6
"i am sure", 5
"the pavement and", 5
"number of cyclists", 5
"needs to be", 5
"cyclists in the", 5
"cyclists and pedestrians", 5
"the fact that", 4
"it's illegal to ride", 4
"it is about", 4
"cyclists in the city", 4
"the cycling city", 4
"of the road", 4
"it's illegal to", 4
"of cyclists in", 4
"to be a", 4
"the way of", 4
"through red lights", 4
"in the way", 4
"bristol city council", 4
"it is illegal", 4
"illegal to ride", 4
"the highway code", 3
"has been a", 3
"said it was", 3
"i have been", 3
"with no lights", 3
"all the time", 3
"break the law", 3
"cycling city project", 3
"i have seen", 3
"the rules of the", 3
"the rules of", 3
"first cycling city", 3
"and i am sure", 3
"said: it is", 3
"to cycle on", 3
"part of the", 3
"blind and partially sighted", 3
"even if it", 3
"to have a", 3
"on the pavement and", 3
"the city centre", 3
"between cyclists and", 3
"out of the", 3
"cyclists in bristol", 3
"a good thing", 3
"the number of cyclists", 3
"cyclists should be", 3
"the city council", 3
"on the pavement -", 3
"8 million pounds", 3
"rules of the", 3
"and partially sighted", 3
"cycle on the", 3
"red lights and", 3
"the pavement -", 3
"in the way of", 3
"on the road", 3
"one of these", 3
"blind and partially", 3
"and i am", 3
"to cycle on the", 3

Generated EP article of the day

Fresh from our article factory, comes another one

"It got to the point where we were too afraid to go out. Also, they will congregate in groups to have a natter and in doing so, they take up half or more of the path. THERE has been a lot of banter on these pages between cyclists and drivers. The young, the old, the infirm, the family and pets must all be socially cleansed so that cycling hobbyists can come first. Great emphasis on safety there chaps. Only 15 were caught today, as opposed to the 44 who were spoken to at the same time last week. They stick their fingers up and adopt such a bullying manner with people who challenge them. 8 million pounds was spent on cycling infrastructure, such as 13 miles of off-road cycle tracks including the Festival Way to Ashton Court and a route from the centre to Bristol's northern fringe through St Werburgh's and Lockleaze. I only wish this was the case but it happens on a daily basis. Just as a start, when can we have registration plates on bicycles, so these morons can be identified and prosecuted. "

If there's one fault of the system it is that we need more hand-written articles. We've only got 500 sentences right now, and they tend to get a bit repetitive. Given the Evening Post suffers from the same problem -repetitiveness- we are starting to suspect something even more profound.

1. Has the Daily Mail Group, at some point in the recent past, replaced all their journalists in the Bristol Evening Post with a hundred lines of Python code that can generate new articles based on the entire past archives of the paper?

2. How can we determine if this is or is not the case? The standard "turing test" does not apply, because the BEP article portfolio has always been so limited. What else can we do to determine the secret of how Evening Post articles get generated?

Introducing the Evening Post Article Factory!

When introducing our automated bingo card generator, we mentioned that an ultimate goal was to generate whole articles. This actually turns out easier than expected. Rather than use stochastic Markov Chain modelling to predict the follow-on words from an initially n-tuple of corpus-extracted words, we can just use the sentences extracted from the evening post articles and pick some in a random order, initially making sure not to repeat any. This works so well that we cannot even believe it ourselves:

"There are more motorists than cyclists, it makes perfect sense to just ban them. Dark clothing, no lights and certainly no sense but, incredibly, he shouted at me as if I was at fault for not wearing my night vision goggles. As soon as I moved here I started having issues with cyclists, she told the Evening Post. We all aspire to live in attractive, liveable cities where it is safe to get around by foot and by bike, and so we need to encourage people to take up these modes of transport. There were also a couple of pedestrian crossings where cyclists just didn't stop. How about spending some money on the poor down-trodden motorist. But a bit of tolerance might help matters a little. I don't think there are any particular blackspots in the city for riding on the pavement - the whole city is a blackspot. Motorists don't pay enough attention towards cyclists and they seem to forget that we are very vulnerable. If Bristol is the first cycling city then there needs to be more education out there. "

Even though there's been no attempt at finding some coherence between individual sentences, it turns out not to matter. Look at this one. You could get this as a letter in the evening post without even bothering to do any proof-reading:

"Do all this and we can all be friends. Cyclists going on the pavement is really quite dangerous. ). Cyclists shouldn't expect respect from motorists if they can't even be bothered to wait for the lights to go green before launching themselves forward. I have yet to hear of a cyclist that rides according to the law. It's illegal to ride without a helmet and high visibility clothes. The lad was without lights or reflective clothing, and clearly also a responsible adult to look after him. Not so much hug a hoodie but cuddle a cyclist perhaps. And what would have ensued had he collided with me. Whatever happened to the old 'Be safe, be seen' advertising campaign. "

And again.

'Cyclists should observe the highway code just as motorists do. I have yet to hear of a cyclist that rides according to the law. If a driver hit him off his bike they would no doubt get charged with driving with undue care and attention. Concerned residents made their points to MPs from across the region at a meeting of the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB). Cyclists need to realise that the road is for motorists and cyclists and the pavement is for pedestrians. I realise not all cyclists behave like this, just the vast majority, especially the Lycra ones who think they are as wide as cars. There desperately needs to be something shown on TV perhaps to illustrate these dangers. Bristol cyclists still running red lights. I personally think a Cyclist free week would be far more beneficial. We are working with the police to try and overcome this problem. '

This is transformational. We can use the past works of the Evening Post article and letter writers to actually render themselves obsolete. It takes 17 milliseconds to generate one of these articles on a four year old laptop, which means that five million articles can be pushed out every single day. The evening post web site could be set up to generate one every time a visitor hit "reload" on the anti-cycling page. Then, once the comment generator was hooked up to generate comments from the collected comment articles, we could go on to simulate an entire Evening Post comment argument. Finally, the same code could be hooked up the Ashton Value stadium dataset and the whole town green/football stadium battle could be fought to the death between two competing servers. Like skynet only more provincial.

To close, then, with a fifteen sentence article:

"That is very dangerous because you expect to be able to cross safely without watching out. 20 billion pounds of damage to business is caused by traffic jams and cyclists are the main cause. The old Bristol to Bath railway track, Leigh Woods, the Avon Walkway and Ashton Court estate have all been badly scarred by cycling louts as they trash pedestrian paths making them fit only for cyclists, or gouge cycle tracks through the woodland for their hobby. Sometimes this has been where small children are present or when people are walking their dogs. Bodywork repair costs a lot these days. Every single one I see cuts through red lights like a knife through butter. They give me the impression that it is only them on the track and seem blissfully unaware of the fact that there are other 'freelance' cyclists and pedestrians who have just as much right as they have. Mr Drummond said the police seemed to turn a blind eye to cyclists on the pavements, too. It's illegal to ride without a helmet and high visibility clothes. Then, as I reached my destination another cyclist ignored the rules of the roundabout and pulled out straight in front of me. If something isn't done soon, I am afraid there is going to be a terrible, terrible accident. I do think that I will get hit at some point, especially if the number of cyclists in the city keeps increasing. We won't be coming again. I have nothing against cyclists and if I could see properly I would be one, but I would like to think I would be a considerate cyclist. "

Bristol will never be the same again

Evening Post bingo: the keywords

Last week we introduced Evening Post Bingo.

In a comment, someone called Downfader announced that they had the same idea -presumably from our initial proposal the week before- and had produced some cards.

Well, we appreciate the artwork, but note that Downfader's effort shows both selection bias in the form of the writer, and doesn't scale to working with other newspapers or article types.

Being a data-centric company, along with strategic partners like Google and Facebook, we have designed a system that will scale. The process is straightforward -use the articles on the evening post web site which we have already covered as the source of our content -and have machines to the heavy lifting for us.This will not only aid other regions, but apply just as well to the Ashton Gate and Bristol Mayor discussions.

While the sentence/phrase extraction process is underway, here is the initial output -the entire list of words in the Evening Post cycling article corpus, sorted by frequency. Everything is in lower case, so the 124 instances of "i" really translate to "I", and presumably indicate that an opinion is about to appear.

Cleanup is incomplete, apostrophes aren't being stripped of the ends of works, singular and plurals aren't being merged. Keeping the apostrophes in provides extra information, as it usually implies some kind of wittiness from the writer, like 'sui-cyclists' and 'supervision'. This actually makes us feel sorry for these letter writers, as their humour is clearly limited. Once our automated-evening-post-article-generator is completed they can entertain their friends with their humour, rather than inflict it on the rest of us.

For the reader's enjoyment then, the initial output of the Bristol Traffic mine-the-evening post Bingo card and Letter Generating system:-

the, 420
to, 267
and, 228
a, 222
of, 166
cyclists, 135
in, 127
i, 124
on, 107
is, 89
for, 78
they, 77
that, 75
it, 74
as, 71
are, 68
have, 64
cycling, 61
be, 60
was, 53
with, 53
we, 51
not, 50
who, 49
bristol, 49
but, 48
this, 47
city, 46
by, 46
at, 42
all, 42
road, 40
or, 38
lights, 36
there, 35
people, 34
pedestrians, 34
he, 34
has, 32
from, 32
their, 31
do, 29
cycle, 29
were, 29
would, 28
cyclist, 28
been, 27
one, 27
more, 27
if, 26
out, 26
should, 26
them, 25
about, 25
-, 24
so, 24
you, 24
me, 23
just, 23
pavement, 23
way, 22
my, 20
said, 20
an, 20
some, 19
time, 19
car, 18
council, 18
motorists, 18
police, 18
said:, 18
get, 18
these, 18
no, 17
when, 17
can, 17
ride, 17
will, 17
had, 16
bike, 15
think, 15
pounds, 15
very, 15
see, 15
illegal, 15
could, 15
how, 14
law, 14
say, 14
where, 14
many, 14
number, 14
also, 14
need, 14
dangerous, 14
like, 14
every, 13
pavements, 13
down, 13
than, 13
only, 13
traffic, 13
through, 13
up, 13
red, 13
other, 13
new, 12
same, 12
week, 12
last, 12
our, 12
it's, 12
mr, 11
project, 11
make, 11
right, 11
going, 11
being, 11
his, 11
use, 11
which, 11
even, 10
then, 10
good, 10
seen, 10
cars, 10
any, 10
pay, 10
without, 10
am, 10
us, 10
another, 9
years, 9
million, 9
take, 9
sure, 9
between, 9
around, 9
children, 9
what, 9
don't, 9
safety, 9
money, 9
dark, 9
having, 9
go, 9
tax, 9
must, 8
over, 8
drummond, 8
bikes, 8
still, 8
blind, 8
come, 8
using, 8
feel, 8
him, 8
towards, 8
hit, 8
centre, 8
group, 8
made, 8
i'm, 7
old, 7
clothing, 7
routes, 7
first, 7
laws, 7
walking, 7
before, 7
helmet, 7
your, 7
her, 7
lot, 7
everyone, 7
pedestrian, 7
spent, 7
run, 7
safer, 7
something, 7
she, 7
off, 7
street, 6
campaign, 6
travel, 6
safe, 6
too, 6
target, 6
against, 6
yet, 6
post, 6
says, 6
change, 6
may, 6
year, 6
enough, 6
across, 6
those, 6
drivers, 6
past, 6
needs, 6
that's, 6
done, 6
fine, 6
bristol's, 6
often, 6
users, 6
ago, 6
young, 6
few, 6
high, 6
light, 6
doing, 6
fact, 6
riding, 6
respect, 6
because, 6
transport, 6
under, 5
give, 5
want, 5
after, 5
break, 5
each, 5
gloucester, 5
rogers, 5
despite, 5
much, 5
couple, 5
night, 5
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st, 5
half, 5
now, 5
killed, 5
thing, 5
11, 5
track, 5
nearly, 5
lanes, 5
city's, 5
public, 5
family, 5
eye, 5
two, 5
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signs, 5
its, 5
evening, 5
since, 5
issue, 5
part, 5
paths, 5
8, 5
please, 5
rules, 5
used, 5
back, 5
into, 5
day, 5
why, 5
problem, 5
know, 5
does, 5
stay, 5
own, 5
three, 5
partially, 5
whether, 5
education, 5
accidents, 5
told, 4
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keep, 4
turn, 4
fit, 4
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stop, 4
considerate, 4
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protect, 4
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maybe, 4
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crossings, 4
anyone, 4
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morning, 4
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myself, 4
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again, 4
small, 4
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22, 4
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someone, 4
insurance, 4
really, 4
officers, 4
chairman, 4
idiots, 4
both, 4
point, 4
else, 4
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once, 4
others, 4
danger, 4
majority, 4
move, 4
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south, 4
gear, 4
let's, 4
wear, 4
well, 4
add, 4
avoid, 4
pressure, 4
getting, 4
roads, 4
authority, 4
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free, 3
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result, 3
seven, 3
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claim, 3
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seriously, 3
quite, 3
care, 3
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massive, 3
saving, 3
vote, 3
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15, 3
especially, 3
drive, 3
cannot, 3
wheels, 3
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situation, 3
middle, 3
railway, 3
accountable, 3
foot, 3
legal, 3
rush, 3
wife, 3
rogue, 3
mps, 3
large, 3
streets, 3
further, 3
experience, 3
action, 3
sustrans, 3
near-misses, 3
sense, 3
breaking, 3
compulsory, 3
help, 3
attitude, 3
encouraging, 3
15am, 3
stopped, 3
expect, 3
funding, 3
7, 3
highway, 3
louts, 3
station, 3
behind, 3
double, 3
vulnerable, 3
most, 3
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set, 3
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straight, 3
user, 3
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love, 3
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continue, 3
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long, 3
crackdown, 3
planet, 3
called, 3
bishopston, 3
lane, 3
gloucestershire, 3
menace, 3
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great, 3
next, 3
doubling, 3
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visibility, 3
train, 3
plate, 3
counted, 3
including, 3
hands, 3
front, 3
cause, 3
priority, 3
clearly, 3
able, 3
areas, 3
progress, 3
avon, 3
taking, 3
walk, 3
perhaps, 3
injured, 3
effect, 3
government, 3
proper, 3
home, 3
obey, 3
count, 3
wish, 3
limited, 2
aim, 2
never, 2
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hospital, 2
call, 2
aware, 2
adult, 2
hold, 2
room, 2
err, 2
route, 2
end, 2
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appreciate, 2
green, 2
keeps, 2
better, 2
tourist, 2
represents, 2
side, 2
schemes, 2
carry, 2
turning, 2
enlightened, 2
days, 2
caught, 2
unlit, 2
top, 2
took, 2
outlaw, 2
matter, 2
mine, 2
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responsibility, 2
roundabout, 2
14, 2
ban, 2
fail, 2
best, 2
tolerance, 2
however, 2
here, 2
accident, 2
reported, 2
planned, 2
high-visibility, 2
rather, 2
catch, 2
rnib, 2
motorist, 2
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suggest, 2
several, 2
published, 2
meads, 2
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yes, 2
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possibly, 2
officer, 2
pushbike, 2
footway, 2
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bath, 2
hear, 2
lorry, 2
evidence, 2
felt, 2
hurt, 2
assume, 2
certainly, 2
environment, 2
bicycles, 2
cool, 2
team, 2
cost, 2
stands, 2
shared, 2
address, 2
wait, 2
boy, 2
funded, 2
example, 2
law-abiding, 2
country's, 2
visit, 2
today, 2
riders, 2
following, 2
didn't, 2
winter, 2
guarantee, 2
spot, 2
designed, 2
man, 2
werburgh's, 2
remember, 2
course, 2
councillor, 2
main, 2
lycra, 2
tried, 2
living, 2
earlier, 2
remainder, 2
cycles, 2
place, 2
spoken, 2
message, 2
millions, 2
redland, 2
10, 2
sat, 2
paid, 2
later, 2
abraham, 2
spaces, 2
aggressive, 2
regarding, 2
reading, 2
miles, 2
vision, 2
seat, 2
encouraged, 2
blame, 2
cities, 2
among, 2
zetland, 2
3000, 2
couldn't, 2
sensible, 2
collided, 2
reflective, 2
observe, 2
case, 2
everyday, 2
running, 2
charged, 2
actions, 2
death, 2
thinking, 2
4, 2
read, 2
either, 2
always, 2
central, 2
act, 2
area, 2
sides, 2
condone, 2
certain, 2
important, 2
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forget, 2
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sitting, 2
20mph, 2
hartas, 2
behaviour, 2
tracks, 2
advertising, 2
amenities, 2
knows, 2
excuse, 2
stick, 2
particular, 2
hour, 2
patrols, 2
749, 2
huge, 2
court, 2
plans, 2
rude, 2
soon, 2
disabled, 2
24, 2
style, 2
20, 2
travelling, 2
return, 2
propose, 2
association, 2
occasions, 2
level, 2
lycra-clad, 2
england, 2
hard, 2
idea, 2
missed, 2
terrible, 2
year's, 2
least, 2
costs, 2
park, 2
sometimes, 2
particularly, 2
impact, 2
meanwhile, 2
during, 2
attention, 2
incident, 2
invisible, 2
whole, 2
throughout, 2
weaving, 2
due, 2
lives, 2
look, 2
while, 2
obviously, 2
readers, 2
tell, 2
march, 2
big, 2
bid, 2
bit, 2
essential, 2
one-way, 2
per, 2
temple, 2
anything, 2
nothing, 2
we're, 2
forward, 2
boys, 2
properly, 2
unsafe, 2
reflectors, 2
ashton, 2
2008, 2
issues, 2
concerned, 2
friendly, 2
sent, 2
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race, 2
giving, 2
access, 2
growing, 2
consideration, 2
involved, 2
opinion, 2
residents, 2
apply, 2
doubt, 2
charity, 2
junctions, 2
democracy, 2
brian, 2
abuse, 2
whilst, 2
flout, 2
university, 2
identified, 2
crossing, 2
33000, 2
improvements, 2
nobody, 2
afraid, 2
funds, 2
eight, 2
face, 2
parked, 2
longer, 2
won't, 2
local, 2
meant, 2
jon, 2
etc, 2
figures, 2
safely, 2
wall, 2
cent, 2
moved, 2
policy, 2
frustrating, 2
almost, 2
cross, 2
proficiency, 2
lobby, 2
sets, 2
five, 2
walkway, 2
martin, 2
operation, 2
leader, 2
although, 2
letters, 2
registration, 2
biggest, 2
gain, 2
squeeze, 2
incredibly, 2
rule, 2
raining, 1
sleek, 1
obstruction, 1
woods, 1
hate, 1
whatsoever, 1
teaching, 1
slowest, 1
instincts, 1
risk, 1
regional, 1
car-free, 1
vast, 1
tickets, 1
amenities/green, 1
wednesday, 1
enforce, 1
subsidising, 1
convenience, 1
'solution', 1
flashy, 1
heading, 1
enjoy, 1
force, 1
preached, 1
phones, 1
horn, 1
second, 1
implemented, 1
machines, 1
pace, 1
two-wheeler, 1
spokesman, 1
bonuses, 1
absolute, 1
better-spent, 1
drew, 1
protection, 1
kids, 1
daughter, 1
jams, 1
oxford, 1
study, 1
credit, 1
suitable, 1
criticism, 1
julie, 1
feelings, 1
total, 1
criminals, 1
spoke, 1
army, 1
well-trained, 1
crossbar, 1
warm, 1
menaced, 1
hurl, 1
90, 1
ward, 1
94, 1
join, 1
cuddle, 1
ms, 1
pollute, 1
whizzed, 1
horfield, 1
answer, 1
gamble, 1
rise, 1
description, 1
lad, 1
lay, 1
parallel, 1
third, 1
maintain, 1
frequent, 1
uninsured, 1
welcomed, 1
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banged, 1
natter, 1
bombing, 1
somewhere, 1
highlights, 1
redfield, 1
writing, 1
fig, 1
easier, 1
overcome, 1
educating, 1
schools, 1
downright, 1
structural, 1
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luck, 1
councils, 1
husband, 1
bodywork, 1
borne, 1
two-hour, 1
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hoodie, 1
people's, 1
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lothian, 1
bedminster, 1
aspire, 1
baltic, 1
onto, 1
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rant, 1
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john, 1
bitter, 1
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helen, 1
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58, 1
54, 1
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50, 1
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25000, 1
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22m, 1
statements, 1
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bert, 1
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maximum, 1
gould, 1
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passenger, 1
adopt, 1
proven, 1
promised, 1
blatantly, 1
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role, 1
holding, 1
test, 1
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authorities, 1
stoke, 1
congested, 1
billion, 1
faster, 1
tested, 1
ensued, 1
well-designed, 1
watered-down, 1
wraiths, 1
resources, 1
roy, 1
avalanche, 1
freelance, 1
father, 1
promoting, 1
advantage, 1
down-trodden, 1
advised, 1
trouble, 1
blast, 1
policeman, 1
turns, 1
posts, 1
leave, 1
quick, 1
guy, 1
unaware, 1
prevent, 1
regret, 1
irritates, 1
schiffer, 1
favour, 1
debate, 1
falling, 1
wheelies, 1
bandwagon, 1
henry, 1
alone, 1
healthy, 1
usually, 1
regardless, 1
griffiths, 1
extra, 1
everybody, 1
russell, 1
working, 1
sake, 1
wicker, 1
opposed, 1
sharing, 1
afford, 1
mouthing, 1
everywhere, 1
sachs', 1
effort, 1
unconditional, 1
crazy, 1
figure, 1
december, 1
heard, 1
dropped, 1
counting, 1
watching, 1
1, 1
immune, 1
ensure, 1
sworn, 1
edinburgh, 1
144, 1
paramount, 1
wonderful, 1
disgusted, 1
improving, 1
revealed, 1
cascade, 1
switch, 1
reputations, 1
lagoon, 1
basket, 1
talk, 1
typical, 1
bastow, 1
repair, 1
shaky, 1
cuts, 1
bikeability, 1
maim, 1
abusive, 1
happened, 1
correspondence, 1
matched, 1
leds, 1
shouted, 1
name, 1
kerb, 1
prompted, 1
whiteladies, 1
catching, 1
zebra, 1
girl, 1
shown, 1
space, 1
increase, 1
shouldn't, 1
advice, 1
shows, 1
inevitably, 1
plea, 1
scarred, 1
waited, 1
fast, 1
impossible, 1
exaggerations, 1
outing, 1
tragic, 1
terrifying, 1
williams, 1
hug, 1
mostly, 1
on;, 1
huw, 1
population, 1
13, 1
unfortunately, 1
17, 1
spokeswoman, 1
taxpayers', 1
acknowledged, 1
pastime, 1
saw, 1
hooded, 1
sanctimonious, 1
tax-payer, 1
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potential, 1
davies, 1
wonder, 1
jungle, 1
handing, 1
trace, 1
opposite, 1
clearer, 1
importantly, 1
complaints, 1
pages, 1
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mrs, 1
show, 1
high-profile, 1
corner, 1
slow, 1
leigh, 1
saints, 1
seen', 1
equipped, 1
awareness, 1
designated, 1
wardens, 1
anti-car, 1
illingworth, 1
anti-cyclist, 1
celebrate, 1
prime, 1
predicted, 1
ignored, 1
elected, 1
apologies, 1
ruined, 1
no-one, 1
clips, 1
unabated, 1
sites, 1
infrastructure, 1
jobs, 1
antics, 1
queueing, 1
26, 1
killing, 1
farcical, 1
region, 1
according, 1
personal, 1
expression, 1
pot, 1
68, 1
considering, 1
stretch, 1
combined, 1
borders, 1
wants, 1
direction, 1
educated, 1
corduroys, 1
former, 1
invited, 1
eventually, 1
quiet, 1
sudden, 1
worry, 1
cafe, 1
harsh, 1
woodland, 1
angered, 1
struggling, 1
visually, 1
drives, 1
director, 1
changing, 1
warmley, 1
modes, 1
remain, 1
amazed, 1
cheltenham, 1
morons, 1
generally, 1
kill, 1
touch, 1
speed, 1
nick, 1
plenty, 1
ross, 1
real, 1
desperately, 1
offence, 1
mot, 1
early, 1
listening, 1
lady, 1
photographs, 1
clad, 1
facing, 1
benefit, 1
fiver, 1
competition, 1
provided, 1
mood, 1
confirm, 1
retinitis, 1
conservative, 1
cleansed, 1
knife, 1
business, 1
seconds, 1
broken, 1
strangled, 1
throw, 1
fringe, 1
obeys, 1
pockets, 1
decimated, 1
on-the-spot, 1
supervising, 1
hey, 1
low, 1
somerset, 1
mornings, 1
peaceful, 1
two-thirds, 1
happening, 1
they're, 1
october, 1
wasn't, 1
criticised, 1
agree, 1
strongly, 1
toilet, 1
fist, 1
'sui-cyclists', 1
shoulders, 1
bishop, 1
fill, 1
incorrect, 1
twerp, 1
hobbyists, 1
trash, 1
poor, 1
shelter, 1
annes, 1
included, 1
pointing, 1
lack, 1
swerving, 1
month, 1
commute, 1
carpet, 1
tv, 1
enjoying, 1
infirmary, 1
paying, 1
scout, 1
worse, 1
worst, 1
difference, 1
condition, 1
steve, 1
colossal, 1
zero, 1
witnessed, 1
section, 1
racing, 1
contrast, 1
full, 1
estate, 1
tragedy, 1
inspired, 1
healthier, 1
pub's, 1
pick, 1
sticking, 1
buses, 1
caravan, 1
injure, 1
destination, 1
6, 1
megaphone, 1
door, 1
staggering, 1
owners, 1
broke, 1
doom, 1
respected, 1
phillip, 1
harbourside, 1
escorted, 1
nine, 1
dem, 1
history, 1
challenging, 1
states, 1
collision, 1
minimum, 1
numbers, 1
narrowly, 1
needy, 1
speeding, 1
paintwork, 1
concentrating, 1
short, 1
co-exist, 1
privileges, 1
handlebars, 1
suffer, 1
arrogant, 1
fined, 1
late, 1
attended, 1
stephen, 1
haven't, 1
socially, 1
prejudices, 1
sweeping, 1
complain, 1
easily, 1
perkin, 1
found, 1
isn't, 1
status, 1
undertake, 1
inspections, 1
disquiet, 1
rent-a-bike, 1
misses, 1
belief, 1
holroyd, 1
enforcing, 1
story, 1
geared, 1
base, 1
members, 1
imagine, 1
bullying, 1
dishwasher, 1
conducted, 1
rogues, 1
major, 1
upper, 1
instances, 1
armitage, 1
mist, 1
£30, 1
militant, 1
pensioner, 1
together, 1
threatening, 1
obligatory, 1
paint, 1
passed, 1
scheme, 1
relationship, 1
mentality, 1
immediate, 1
ashley, 1
believe, 1
secretarial, 1
vocal, 1
stall, 1
contrary, 1
gloucestershire's, 1
alongside, 1
fairburn, 1
aged, 1
lib, 1
self, 1
scotland, 1
camouflage, 1
liz, 1
experienced, 1
car-hating, 1
electric, 1
warnings, 1
promenade, 1
significant, 1
services, 1
extremely, 1
mobile, 1
clear, 1
part-time, 1
generalising, 1
tpr, 1
carefully, 1
hereditary, 1
find, 1
richmond, 1
'freelance', 1
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nervous, 1
heavily, 1
penalty, 1
failed, 1
wayne, 1
dysfunctional, 1
publicity, 1
banned, 1
enemy, 1
weaved, 1
activity, 1
bars, 1
culture, 1
individual, 1
close, 1
visiting, 1
pictures, 1
various, 1
probably, 1
conditions, 1
recently, 1
creating, 1
missing, 1
half-hour, 1
8am, 1
context, 1
blissfully, 1
community, 1
hadn't, 1
church, 1
patiently, 1
finally, 1
pc, 1
reduction, 1
fights, 1
pedals, 1
what's, 1
whatever, 1
towns, 1
budget, 1
institute, 1
fun, 1
use', 1
wherever, 1
encountered, 1
vanish, 1
grant, 1
widely, 1
development, 1
mountain, 1
banter, 1
youngsters, 1
holidays, 1
moving, 1
southport, 1
older, 1
alleging, 1
person, 1
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gripe, 1
stunt, 1
alternative, 1
injuries, 1
tables, 1
shouting, 1
oldland, 1
deliberately, 1
build, 1
'shared, 1
matters, 1
knock, 1
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d, 1
obliged, 1
magnificent, 1
litter, 1
mighty, 1
examples, 1
sight, 1
trendy, 1
delivered, 1
decision, 1
prosecuted, 1
anna, 1
blackspots, 1
lose, 1
confidence, 1
relating, 1
cigarette, 1
classics, 1
seeing, 1
well-organised, 1
contributor, 1
alison, 1
gouge, 1
habitat, 1
spending, 1
syllabus, 1
himself, 1
invite, 1
uk's, 1
registered, 1
hail, 1
upright, 1
liveable, 1
2mph, 1
uk, 1
similar, 1
adults, 1
single, 1
warning, 1
amounts, 1
fears, 1
excuses, 1
points, 1
recognition, 1
organise, 1
nice, 1
problems, 1
visits, 1
helping, 1
garbed, 1
age, 1
'humble', 1
stephen's, 1
far, 1
results, 1
highways, 1
kate, 1
seemed, 1
chaps, 1
respectful, 1
black-riders, 1
shock, 1
michael, 1
they've, 1
fewer, 1
challenge, 1
slogan:, 1
odd, 1
marketed, 1
man's, 1
body, 1
chose, 1
beasts, 1
pushing, 1
commercial, 1
33, 1
gent, 1
30, 1
leaving, 1
makes, 1
named, 1
disobey, 1
dedicated, 1
62-year-old, 1
dumbest, 1
boasts, 1
standing, 1
vehicle, 1
jonathan, 1
sort, 1
formally, 1
occurred, 1
account, 1
f, 1
insists, 1
arches, 1
anywhere, 1
control, 1
wharf, 1
patrol, 1
tar, 1
rode, 1
policing, 1
30cm, 1
sit, 1
six, 1
animal, 1
instead, 1
tension, 1
administrator, 1
cycle-free, 1
by-law, 1
bothered, 1
they/we, 1
1885, 1
9am, 1
crazed, 1
'be, 1
mentioned, 1
wife's, 1
perfect, 1
goading, 1
hobby, 1
2011, 1
dad, 1
impaired, 1
stunts, 1
masters, 1
undertaking, 1
lawful, 1
staying, 1
matt, 1
playground, 1
achievements, 1
ipod, 1
surely, 1
collection, 1
steering, 1
'supervision', 1
2009/10, 1
times, 1
adrian, 1
mad, 1
scene, 1
reached, 1
quality, 1
doesn't, 1
management, 1
sadly, 1
festival, 1
enforcement, 1
regards, 1
colleagues, 1
holland, 1
bother, 1
car-park, 1
providing, 1
coronation, 1
beggared, 1
false, 1
westbury, 1
parks, 1
co-ordinator, 1
unless, 1
so-called, 1
discourage, 1
upset, 1
astonishing, 1
occasion, 1
normally, 1
goals, 1
impression, 1
supported, 1
anyway, 1
planning, 1
well-being, 1
fear, 1
pleased, 1
decade, 1
promote, 1
pigmentosa, 1
hope, 1
handle, 1
means, 1
lucky, 1
scott:, 1
99%, 1
ones, 1
legitimate, 1
magistrate, 1
approach, 1
watershed, 1
affluent, 1
taxed, 1
fixed, 1
national, 1
lazy, 1
operated, 1
kingswood, 1
closer, 1
written, 1
email, 1
disgruntled, 1
deliver, 1
david, 1
45am, 1
admit, 1
hi-viz, 1
comment, 1
co, 1
tuesday, 1
commend, 1
allocated, 1
waste, 1
mike, 1
arises, 1
controlled, 1
finishes, 1
finished, 1
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general, 1
present, 1
unlike, 1
dodge, 1
harder, 1
nobody's, 1
workplaces, 1
helped, 1
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pauls, 1
member, 1
party, 1
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difficult, 1
eccentric, 1
disagree, 1
variety, 1
thought, 1
less, 1
increasingly, 1
executive, 1
rooms, 1
protecting, 1
blackspot, 1
ill-educated, 1
smith, 1
arrest, 1
vent/put, 1
attractive, 1
wet, 1
match, 1
tests, 1
increased, 1
supervise, 1
whopping, 1
necessary, 1
taxpayers, 1
become, 1
page, 1
motorcyclists, 1
grids, 1
scared, 1
library, 1
redress, 1
peter, 1
happens, 1
pedestrianised, 1
reaching, 1
carried, 1
introduces, 1
beige, 1
outset, 1
congregate, 1
brush, 1
van, 1
noticed, 1
invisibility, 1
north, 1
i've, 1
bus, 1
brand, 1
lowered, 1
plague, 1
signed, 1
volvo, 1
below, 1
this;, 1
bpa2011@live, 1
minutes, 1
urging, 1
goodness, 1
commentators, 1
eric, 1
compared, 1
49, 1
44, 1
monday, 1
frustrate, 1
gap, 1
baker, 1
britain's, 1

Street Art in Stokes Croft

Here at Bristol Traffic we know nothing about creativity. But we're not slobs. We like a bit of art.

And... we have to drive our White Van about quite a lot when we need to buy a new screw, or pick up a cold pasty. Which means we often find ourselves driving through Stokes Croft heading for the Tesco Express there (with it's convenient cycle lane to park in) at lunchtime before we head to the pub.

Known as Bristol's Cultural Quarter Stokes Croft is home to much of Bristol's artistic and creative community. The area is awash with pop-up shops, cafes, squats, street drinkers and shouters, and general all-round goodness (well, if Tescos is shut, we can always use Slix or Ritas). And, it comes alive with music at night, which makes it pretty much a 24 hour space.

The southern approach to Stokes Croft looks like this:

We buy our paint at the trade counter here, so we know there are many successful and creative artists working out of sight of the general public in places like the Jamaica Street Studios, Hamilton House and The Motorcycle Showroom. Unknown, but also hidden from view, are the many thriving digital media businesses which are also in the area. Their effects are more visible on a web-page or phone app. If your broadband is slow, blame them!

More apparent, when visiting Stokes Croft, are the many Street Artists that have managed to display their various works on buildings and walls around the area. Some are famous, some are not.

What we'd never realised, though, was just who the most prolific Street Artist / Tagger in Bristol is.

It's you!

Your tax pays for Bristol City Council to do some stunning artwork in the streets.

It's April 1st today, but this is not a joke.