WOT madness

Thank goodness the road in Westbury on Trym has been resurfaced. The potholes were getting to the point where vehicles were almost having to slow down. WOT is actually a major traffic roundabout with added benefits of shops and cash machines easily accessible thanks to the re-painted double yellow lines and zig zags showing where it is convenient to park.

Here is the best parking bit where the council have deliberately shortened the zig zags after the pedestrian crossing on one side of the road so that convenient double yellow parking can take place. As this TNT van DU56PLN demonstrates.

But this local shopping and parking utopia is being threatened by anarchist hippies Sustainable Westbury-on-Trym who are part of the ominous Transition Bristol and they want to close off half of the road to vehicles. You will still be able to drive in every direction but no longer will there be a scenic roundabout to circle whilst finding a nice spot to stop. The reduction of such a wide road will inevitably mean less space to hazard-light park for that important minute or two to top up your mobile phone at the cash machine or pick up a donut at the bakery. Local businesses will be devastated.

Hidden in the proposals also are a proposal to reduce the speed limit to 20 mph, making a mockery of the council’s resurfacing efforts. It must be stopped!

Portsmouth Update

Been 6+ months since our last B.Traffic team visit to Pompey, so we nipped down to enjoy a town whose team is slightly closer to the bottom of the football league than one of our own teams, so a bit of gloating. Of course, their town hasn't offered to pay for a world-cup class stadium, so it cuts both ways.

Now, the seafront, always a source of entertainment.

Today we see someone in one of those so called "practical" bicycles, as opposed to a mid-life crisis toy. But look -she is choosing not to cut across the road into the dedicated two-way cycle route. So much money, and these disrepectful underpeople ignore what we offer them.

Fortunately, not all do. Here, at the end of the path, we can see a father and child at the head of a family group, leaving the road and going over to the traffic island.

An island where they are followed by their entire family. Some people think "sweet", but we look at how much the back wheels of the rear two family members stick out into our lane, and wonder if they'd have the 3rd party insurance to pay for our bumper damage were we to clip them.

We know some people will be saying "it's daft to have a bike path that cuts over lanes, how are you meant to get home alive", but we say "you are ungrateful whiners". We also have to point out that the council is doing the best they can. There is nowhere else they could have put in this much space for bicycles.

Nowhere at all.

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.

Monty Week: robbies driving school

Again, we see how some driving schools teach proper Montpelier-style driving skills.

Today, FD59EPK of Robbies Driving school - a regular contributor to our site- shows an important technique: how best to block a bike lane with double yellow lines while you shop. The secret: put your hazard lights on.


The flashing lights says "only five or ten minutes" or "important", so they are useful tools to use. Our Monty MOT will check that they work, it's the indicators for pulling out/changing lanes/turning that won't be checked for.

When the Stokes Croft Tesco mini-mart is opened behind where the car is,  knowing how to park here will be an invaluable skill. This bike lane -and the one opposite- will be only shoppers parking available.

Monty Week: British School of motoring show the skills

A first driving lesson. Sitting in the car, getting the mirrors right, adjusting the seat, getting ready to set off. Scary.

Along with our proposal of a separate Monty MOT test ("no wingmirrors"), we think a separate driving test, one that reflects the reality of these streets. Not parallel parking: paveparking.

Which is why we are delighted to see this British School of Motoring (BSM) car WR59WXZ showing one of their customers how to drive properly for this part of the city. By popping up far enough on the pavement to stop anyone getting past, less worries about accidentally clipping them as you turn onto the road.




We are so tempted to phone up the number on the back of the car or go to their web site and ask for a pavement parking lesson like this. Unfortunately, the terms of conditions of the DVLA's "please place your license in this prepaid envelope" letter appears to prevent such actions. Perhaps readers may wish to enquire themselves?

Update: reg# is WR59FXZ -thank you Benjamin!

How to get ahead in advertising

Is the recession affecting your business?. Well, don't worry!. Come to Bristol where you can enjoy free(ish) parking which can help lower your advertising costs. For a limited period only, Bristol business can relax and feel free to advertise as suggested above. Don't worry about creating a blind spot on a bend. They just make life a bit more interesting for pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists,mounted police (including those patrolling the Railway Path nearby) other drivers and, being the main road into an industrial estate, large HGV drivers too. The double yellow lines are a nice touch-highlighting the car like giant go faster stripes. And you can add a sexy tilt by using the pavement, so that pedestrians can also enjoy the car showroom experience without having to lean over the kerb too far.

Irony

Apparently Americans don't 'get' irony.

Here in Bristol we thrive on it.

Especially at the Zoo.

Car Park.

On the Downs.

Early Adopters

"Early adopters of new technologies are said to reap greater rewards".

At least that's what an IT guru for a large construction company once told me after I'd told him I couldn't run anything ending in .exe, because I was using an Apple Mac. Still not sure what his point was, however...

With a new government comes early adoption of some clear and sensible thinking on at least two fronts.

1. No more speed cameras.

We like this. After all, we're careful drivers when we want to be, and with the cameras gone we can concentrate on cutting up the tax dodging cyclists at speed without fear of retribution. We might even be able to take out a few jay-walkers and get away with it too.

2. No more clamping on private land.

Again, a brilliant move. We'll be able to park on anyone else's driveway without fear of intimidation and extortion.

So we're particularly impressed with these early adopters, Skodas WR08OVK and WM08EZH, who've ignored the sign promising they will be clamped, and managed to spend quality time outside an ex-IMAX without being clamped.

Here at Bristol Traffic we believe it's important that we manage to catalogue these vital new parking opportunities, as they come on-stream, so that we can sell them to the wider driving community at a later date (for a profit, of course).

Letting down the white-van side

White vans. It's not just a great vehicle for urban use, it's a lifestyle choice. Buy one, and you are part of a community.You drive around with your copy of the sun, a stack of yellow parking tickets and the remains of a bacon butty on your dashboard, you stick one elbow out the window holding a phone to your ear -and you belong. A friendly nod to the other vans, cutting each other a bit of slack. Not just a transport options, we, the under-respected white van drivers are the ones who hold our city together. Regardless of whether its a big job or something that just needs an AA battery, taking the van out makes a statement.

Which is why we are sad to have this photograph -taken from our van- of someone clearly carrying building equipment on a bicycle up Dovercourt road.

If he'd been in a van, he'd have been one of us, welcomed. Instead, well, of course we had to cut him up while sounding our horn. He didn't have a helmet on, did he?

Anarchist Hippies

It's happening all around the world, apparently.

Graffiti. Just plain wrong.

Pedestrian plays Frogger

We like the site Fight Bad Driving ; it gives us ideas. But where do you see them denounce pedestrians? Never. The AA does, as usual, months behind us, and then only for not paying attention to our midlife-crisis sports cars or our parental-crisis 4x4s. We, are the only site prepared to come out and denounce pedestrians just for being there, in our way, on the pavement, the zebra crossings, and acting like these places belong to them, instead of us, the tax paying motorist.

We are pleased, therefore, to get a new video with commentary from Rhode Long, showing why pedestrians and bicycles together are a danger to our vehicles:


Rhode says:

If pedestrians are going to jump red lights then they should do so when there are not cyclists around. Had this one on Southmead Road been a second earlier it might have resulted in the cycle swerving into the side of my car. Dents from people pull out quite easily but a cycle is full of pointy metal pieces that will cause scratches to the paintwork and necessitate a re-spray. 

We concur. And neither of them would have been insured, would they? Did that pedestrian have a helmet? A license? They shouldn't be allowed out.

Local Parking

Gloucester Road, Pigsty Hill, call it what you like. It's got Local Shops for Local People.

And local people know where to park for free, even on busy days.

KV04MWE may not originally be from around these parts, but shows us where to park if you need some asparagus, or a punnet of strawberries.

Here we see an obviously more local car, WV06LYZ, correctly positioned to interact with the community, taking up less space on the road, and generally being more considerate whilst it's driver partakes in a leisurely latte with friends.

Almost continental.

Keeping the Abbey Wood shared use paths in good condition

Drainage Services are busy up by the MOD Abbey Wood area in the North Fringe, keeping the drainage in a bit of S. Gloucs well drained.

Some people might think that it is somewhat antisocial blocking an entire bike/foot path when the dual carriageway alongside has almost no traffic, at least not until the tailspin housing estate sells some more houses.

But think about it. Badly drained bike paths force cyclists into the road, where they could interfere with us.

Furthermore, this particular path enables a combined bicycle and supermarket journey, in which the shopper cycles to the A4174 Sainsbury's and pushes both the bicycle and the shopping trolley home. This is not possible on on-road, vehicular cycling routes. These people should be grateful for getting such an open bit of pavement to share with pedestrians, even if we hate them on the other pavements.

Picton Square open for 4x4 parking again!

We are pleased to announce that despite the best efforts of the local street activists, someone has knocked down one of the bollards on Picton Square, so providing somewhere for vans and 4x4s to park when visiting the nearby shops.

This is technically a bike path, but, well, who cares?

Update: Quercus claims that SC51MXS is their vehicle.

Trouble on Happy Lane

We've covered the Happy Lane buildout before, a nice place for a car with a lampost to protect your wing mirrors from passing traffic on Ashley Down Road. Not so happy today though.

Something has gone into the Fiesta FD03LLW hard enough to damage the front and trigger the airbags. What could do such damage to a car safely parked on the pavement?

Further up the road, we get a hint of the probable culprit: the ever present lycra-menace on our pavements

Warning

this means

NO CYCLING

on the pavement

It is only through enforcing such rules that our parked cars will be safe.

Gary Hopkins: what do people have against him?

After the evening post denunciation, all was quiet on the Cllr Hopkins front, and down in St Werburgh's someone even stuck a painting of him up on the Mina Road tunnel.

Yet no sooner does Cllr Hopkins appear in the news boldly pushing a 20 mph zone in this part of the city, someone takes the spray can to the art

This is like pulling down statues of out of favour leaders in eastern europe -while they are still in power

Bristol Traffic and your privacy rights

A while back, we documented how selfish pedestrians trying to squeeze past Hampton House hospital staff cars parked on the pavement forced the BRI hospital van WR58UMS to drive down a bicycle only contraflow and then park half on the pavement, half on the yellow lines, and keep the door open to reduce the risk of any bicycle damaging their paintwork.

Our reporter also says that the driver warned "if a photo of them appeared on the web site, they would be prosecuted".

This raised an interesting question, one we raised with the Information Commissioners Office,  namely what are the data protection rules surrounding photographs of vehicles in public places.

We now have a response

From:  casework at ico.gsi.gov.uk

Date: Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 11:22 AM
Subject: Data Protection Query[Ref. ENQ0341761]
To: bristol.traffic at gmail.com

19th August 2010

Case Reference Number ENQ0341761

Dear Sir/Madam

Thank you for your email.

In order to fall under the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 the data concerned must be personal data; that is data from which a living individual can be identified.  Vehicles and their registration numbers in isolation from any other information are not considered to be personal data.

As such its seems unlikely that the Data Protection Act 1998 will apply to the situation you outline.  You may need to ensure that you do not include images of the drivers when these pictures are taken as this could lead you into the area of data protection.

Obviously there may be other legal issues you will need to consider but these are not matters that this office could give you advice on.

I hope this clarifies the matter for you

Yours sincerely

Louise MacDonald

Lead Case Officer

 ____________________________________________________________________


The ICO’s mission is to uphold information rights in the public interest, promoting openness by public bodies and data privacy for individuals.

If you are not the intended recipient of this email (and any attachment), please inform the sender by return email and destroy all copies. Unauthorised access, use, disclosure, storage or copying is not permitted.
Communication by internet email is not secure as messages can be intercepted and read by someone else. Therefore we strongly advise you not to email any information, which if disclosed to unrelated third parties would be likely to cause you distress. If you have an enquiry of this nature please provide a postal address to allow us to communicate with you in a more secure way. If you want us to respond by email you must realise that there can be no guarantee of privacy.
Any email including its content may be monitored and used by the Information Commissioner's Office for reasons of security and for monitoring internal compliance with the office policy on staff use. Email monitoring or blocking software may also be used. Please be aware that you have a responsibility to ensure that any email you write or forward is within the bounds of the law.
The Information Commissioner's Office cannot guarantee that this message or any attachment is virus free or has not been intercepted and amended. You should perform your own virus checks.
__________________________________________________________________

Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113 Fax: 01625 524 510 Web: www.ico.gov.uk

So there you have it. Cars with registration numbers yes, people on their own, OK, but photographs of the drivers with the reg nos, maybe. Interesting. We shall have to consider this. Good email signature.

Found: one van wing mirror

A wing mirror was spotted in Fairfield Road last week. It's probably gone now as anyone else whose van needs an MOT soon will have picked it up and duct-taped it together enough to get through the "has two wing mirrors" part of the test.

This is why it's always so traumatic when the DVLA hits Montpelier. A lot of people run untaxed vehicles not because the tax and insurance costs have to come after the RAC home recovery breakdown cover in terms of priority, but because the MOT has rules about the number of wing mirrors and the state of bodywork of vehicles, and it is impossible to meet those requirements and keep a car in Montpelier.

The War on Motorists will not be over until the government rolls out specific MOT requirements for different parts of Britain, of Bristol. In Stoke Bishop, for example, you'd fail the test for having an old car, anything less than Group G, and 2 wheel drive would only be permitted on two seater sports toys. In Montpelier, the wingmirror rule would be waived as unrealistic.Taxis would have a special "fail if the indicators and more than one brake light work" clause.

Spirit vs Letter

There are some new houses up on St Pauls Road, Clifton. The council forced them into putting in bike parking as part of their planning permissions.

Two per front garden. Room for four bicycles.

There's just one small flaw. Anybody who spends however much these premium clifton "city" houses cost is going to want to park their cars, multiple thereof. The designers of the houses realised this, and put them as far to the side of the driveway as you could get, allowing the owners to slide two cars in to each garden, from which they can reverse out safely onto this popular road.

As they all do.

This shows the whole futility in this sustainable housing thing. If the house plans require parking to be provided and bike parking, well, the bikes get the short straw. Yet the letter of the requirements "sustainable" has been met.

It would be better to recognise the futility of this design. Anyone in Clifton who does want a bike will get a fancy one and keep it in doors. All these do is take up space and threaten car doors.

Men: bicycles are not the answer to your mid-life crises

We like seeing Bristol on TV, and right now the TV show that has coverage is the BBC's Mistresses, one that shows pretty women driving round the city having extra-marital relationships with men who are also driving round Bristol. Got that? There's a link there: cars=sex. 

This fact is important as there a lot of press right now saying that the new mid-life crisis toy is not a sports car, a motorbike or a woman half your age -it's a racing bicycle. These articles are appearing both in proper papers and socialist rags.

This is wrong.

Men: whatever issues you have in later years -  a bicycle will not solve them.

You may have seen the Tour de France, seen Andy Schleck go to-to-toe with Contador in the Pyrenees, and thought "I could do that", but sadly, you can't. You just penalise the rest of us.

Oh yes, it sounds nice, and makes for some articles showing shiny bicycles against mountain backdrops, such as here, Crater Lake, Oregon. Oh yes, you can dream of such things while stuck in the traffic jams on the A370, or the M32.

But look at those mid-life crisis cyclists. Has it really solved their problems? No, they just fill their lycra clothing too much for everyone else to enjoy, and have strange looking legs. The one on the left: drinks too much beer for that top. The one on the right, scrawny, and apparently has not only continued with his bicycle obsession, gone on to come in at #5 in the veterans category of US Cyclocross rankings, and dragged his daughter in that same obsession.

Well, it's their choice, their money you may think. But as well as damaging the family, we, the motorists suffer. You don't see it in those news articles showing the fat men gasping up the mountains, but we know. We get stuck behind them on our trips to cribbs causeway when we get held up by packs of these middle-aged lycra-louts on their Saturday training rides up the A38. We get stuck behind them on our weekday commutes when their training regime mandates mid-week rides. We get stuck behind them when they spend so much money on bikes and bits that they can't afford to drive and have to cycle to work -on our roads.

We even get stuck behind them in the mountains.


The photo above may look nice, but this is the Going to the Sun Road,  the road from the opening scene of the Shining, the only road through Montana's Glacier National Park, a road that last month the Guardian listed as one of the "must visit" roads in the US.

Yet it is somewhere a single mid-life-crisis roadie could hold up line of Recreational Vehicles, each of which could be towing an SUV carrying a quad bike and a jetski. There to enjoy nature, to bring revenue to the area, not faff around pretending they were six again. At least in the US, they recognise this and ban bicycles in summer, but that just means these people ride up illegally. Whoever took this photograph was not only a tax dodging cyclist, they must have illegally ridden up this mountain pass which is rightfully kept free for important people. Us.

Yet still they come, naively believing that spending money on a bicycle, some silly clothing and then pedalling round the mountains is a noble thing to do.  Then there are these "sportives", which is where hundreds of them come out and block through traffic, such as here, on the RAMROD "Ride around Mount Ranier in One Day" event.

As the cyclists block our roads -here there are even signs up to warn us of the inconvenience- the rest of society pays the price of your inability to settle into middle age with a few beers in front of the TV.

For all those men who have been spending too much time loitering around at Fred Baker's, Mud Dock or that fancy shop at the bottom of Park Street, print out this article and read the points below before you fritter away your money.

1. The main mid-life crises toys for men are sports cars, motorbikes, and a women closer to the age of your offspring than your own year of birth.
2. Motor vehicles -especially the open topped car, help you get that woman on the side.
3. Motor vehicles reward those with money: the more you spend, the faster it goes.
4. It doesn't matter how much you spend on a road bike, you will still be overtaken by the 22 year old riding a fixie one-handed while texting a friend and smoking a cigarette
5. That student girl you were after will find that 22 year old fixie-rider cuter than you.

Think about it. Open topped fast cars have a purpose, road bikes don't. 

More on this topic another day. In the mean time, we are watching you. Act your age -get a sports car.