A Visitors Book briefly appeared at the bottom of Ninetree Hill last month, dangling from a tree
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Some people think it's cute, but we know different. It's a new way to catch rioters.
If every hour the police come up and put their name in along with the time, then if there's a riot all they need to do is go to the book, look at who signed it during the riot, and put them away for five year. It's the physical version of facebook. Indeed, it even has the work "book" in there, which is one of those concepts the Daily Mail want to ban, or at least burn.
Fortunately YA55VDY is wise to these police tactics, and doesn't sign the book.
For those readers who don't live in our fair city, it's about time we gave them a view of Stokes Croft, one that shows how it is the areas leading artistic and cultural quarter. Which it is.
At least, provided giant grinning skulls painted by 3dom and Rowdy are things you can cope with. We feel for the people on Dove Street, who have that staring at them out their bedroom windows. How long do you have to live there before it starts talking to you?
This is lovely, a coming together of our favourite subjects
The Medina Dairies delivery van, YA55VDY, parked over the stokes croft "cycle lane", just up from the post office van and another white van. Keeping the croft free of tax-dodgers, and bringing Yoghurt-related produce to paying customers
YA55VDY is a cult van to us. Never seen to park legally, instead encountered driving up onto pavements, sounding its horn at pedestrians to get out of the way. A delivery van's delivery van.
Yet what should we see on our travels round the city than this very van outside the Star And Garter pub, Montpelier
That's right. The famous van, parked kerbside, on a road with no yellow markings. No wheels on the pavement.
This is a shocking site, and makes us question the entire delivery model of Medina dairies "avoid refrigeration by driving fast and parking close to the shops".
Fortunately, we have evidence that the van driver's colleague who has the Dovercourt Road delivery knows what to do with the van LK08LDN
When given a choice between parking legally in a gap four times the length of your vehicle or double parking, go for the easiest option.
Once the mercedes that blocked vehicles getting off the roundabout had cleared it, vehicles wanting to get onto St Michael's Hill could pull out, and here see the correct tactic: stop cars getting onto the roundabout. It's the only way to reduce demand, and so ensure the junction clears.
Which vehicle do we see here? Yes, its YA55VDY, the cult van of Bristol Traffic
Notice how the vehicle following this car is also in the mini-roundabout, but it hangs back to actually allow pedestrians to cross at the traffic island. Of course, this will prevent vehicles turning right to pull out, which is a bit selfish, but it does allow the roundabout to clear by reducing vehicle ingress rates to match that of egress rates.
The key point here is that it shows that those fellow-motorist-activist groups who advocate removing traffic lights are either missing the point or hiding the truth. On a junction without lights -like this one- the only way to get through is to be aggressive: drive the big vehicles, the 4x4, or even better, the battered big-vehicle, such as the white van. Now we, as white-van drivers, are happy with this, but we think the harsh truth should be discussed in the open, not discovered once they remove lights from the city centre: whoever values their vehicle least wins.
People have been mailing us, where is the Yoghurt Van YA55VDY? Has some disaster struck Bristol's supply of dairy goods. The answer is no, the clocks changing just altered its schedule.
It doesn't pull off without indicating from the buildout by Whiteladies Gate until 08:10 now, helping to remind the driver of the honda SUV why buying a vehicle that may survive a collision with a white van was a good decision that makes school runs safer.
Note how the driver actually waves our (sadly cycling) reporter. The proposed GBBN changes may make it harder for this van, as the buildout may not be so large. While we can't see from the design whether or not bollards are planned, we fear the worst.
Mid life crises. What do do? Sports cars? Mamils? Fixies. No: stalking. It's under-respected, and what the Internet, from Google to Facebook was made for.
We in the B.T. Project have taken up stalking one vehicle, and are pursuing it round the city. YA55VDY: the van that we are proud to have never ever seen parked even vaguely legally.
It's more than just a protest against anti-car, anti-van features, this takes dedication. Here, for example, you could park parallel to the double yellow lines, unload safely and pull out without having to back up blind into Picton Street first. But no, the driver has chosen to park 1m away from the kerb, echelon style, to make a statement. Deliveries matter.
We also have some footage from one of our secretly-instrumented cyclists going down Cotham Hill -you can see the distinctive shape of the van enables our tax-dodger to recognise the vehicle from a distance. This van is now famous!
Now, what's inside the van? We couldn't be bothered to drive over and look, but one of the cycle activists we were haranging here in Monty did -Captain Bikebeard says "yoghurt". Now we know.
In fact, this van is now so famous it deserves its own Facebook fan page. One van, one driver, prepared to stand up against an oppressive state by refusing to park where they make him, instead always -even if it means going out of his way- parking "illegally", as if the state gets to decide where is and isn't legal to park your van.
A few days later, we see it now on the double yellows on Whiteladies Road.
The showcase bus route proposes changes here, so where the van is parked to unload will become a dedicated left turn into Cotham Hill, with its own light sequence. The Cotham Hill zebra crossing will go away, be replaced by some lights which will allow us to drive through while pedestrians wait to cross (as if we didn't do that already), while the addition of a new lane and pedestrian refuge will make walking across the road harder -and well-nigh impossible for any parent with bike plus child trailer or tagalong, which our secretly instrumented report appears to be doing.
This is why we have mixed feelings about the showcase bus route proposal.
Against:
Removes commuter parking from Whiteladies Road.
Encourages bicyclists to cycle up and down the road
Pro
Increases short stay parking on Whiteladies Road.
Removes a zebra crossing used during the rush hour by slow-moving children and students.
Adds a dedicated feed-in lane to Cotham Hill.
The feed in lane will suddenly abandon the cyclists from the safety of a dedicated lane to a situation where they have to merge right into the Whiteladies Road lane just at the same time that all the Redland Mum traffic turning left is trying to swerve left to get into this lane, so putting off the cyclists from every trying to commute by bicycle ever again.
One of our concerns here is that, in the age of austerity, we don't see why any money needs to be spent so that cars can cut in from Whiteladies Road to Cotham Hill. We force our way through the zebra crossing anyway, so all it does is actually increase the likelihood that we get held up by a red light; removes the option of turning right from Cotham Hill to Whiteladies Road, and makes it harder to get a lorry through the corner.
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