Luckiest guy you'll ever see, he ought to go buy a lotto ticket, and get tested for super powers

found on http://parkoffka.ru of course, they find GREAT STUFF! 

Stupid people driving recklessly fast cause traffic collisions

thanks Dan!

any landing you can walk away from

the only car severly damaged that I know of at this years Speedfest was the #3 MG

 Photos in reverse chronological order

and moments before competing with Mercedes 300s

RTC on WLR

Showing we are more timely than the Evening Post with a publishing process that involves shipping paper in from outside Bristol -and so getting stuck on the M4- here are some pics of a collision between a BMW and a Toyota (Auris?) on Whiteladies Road from 08:10; twenty minutes ago.
 
The front of the Toyota looks toast, the airbags haven't deployed so it looks like a low-kinetic energy event.

The BMW bodywork has come out a lot more unscathed, though we suspect that if the driver took it to the BMW dealer in St Philips it would be the one coming out costing the most. The driver (belt and white shirt) was holding something up to the top of his head, implying he'd bashed it on the wheel or windscreen. That reg of BMW may not have airbags, and the driver may not have had a seatbelt or helmet. Yet as this is clearly a below-12mph crash, a cycling helmet would have reduce injuries.

 
The two people with rucksacks are a cyclist on the left and possibly a pedestrian on the right. It'd be tempting to blame the cyclist, but that's not the case, he pulled over after the event and was either being a witness or offering medical support.


What happened? The BMW RJ52AEM was crossing Whiteladies from Oakfield Road. At this point you need to pull across the road to get to West Park if you are heading across Bristol; this is a nice little west-east rat-run option from Clifton to Cotham that avoids the St Pauls Road/Tyndall's Park Road junction, where the traffic lights manufacture congestion.
 

You do need to pull out fairly aggressively as the gaps are quite tight. The main provider of gaps is actually the zebra crossing -whenever a pedestrian uses it the outbound traffic halts in a queue and there's an empty space on the other side of the road; once you get over that outbound lane you can go quite fast over the road, down west park and you are in Cotham Hill in a flash.
Today it went wrong. Looks like either the BMW pulled out expecting the Toyota to give way, and it didn't. Perhaps one or other weren't looking, perhaps the right-of-way negotiation process failed.

Either way, hope all is uninjured and that both are insured. Photos available to either party on request.

Never park up the inside of an HGV

The militant cyclists are saying "It's not our fault that HGVs kill us -they shouldn't be there", and now they even have the Times on their side

We, and our sponsors, Tesco, say "HGVs are needed in our city to deliver an optimised supply chain, if anyone gets run over by one it is their own fault for being on the inside of the vehicle"

This is why a lot of cycle safety training in London is dedicated to make it clear to people on bikes that they are invisible from a cab of an HGV, so should never go up alongside them, or end up in an ASL in front of one.

We have another group of people who need to be better educated.

Take this road, St Werburgh's Road.

If you were in Montpelier, a car with its rear window replaced with cardboard and big scrapes down the side wouldn't get a second glance -but here we are in St Werburghs. What is up?

Apparently, the owner of this car dangerously parked their car on the inside of an HGV.

The HGV -entirely innocently, as the car was hiding in its blind spot- scraped down the side of the car, caught the rear bumper and pulled it off. It also clipped the rear hatch, pulling that up, bending it, and in the process shattering the window.

Why did this happen? Because the car driver, recklessly, parked their car on the inside of where an HGV would go past some ten hours later. For this reason, it is their own fault.

We say: people like this need to go on a "safe parking near HGVs" course, rather than complain about passing trucks from destroying their vehicles. At the very least, they could use that spare space to the right of the picture, the "pavement".

Moments of Madness

Last month we covered how the bus driver accused of deliberately running over a cyclist outside the magistrates court was in court over the incident.

The news is now out that he's been sentenced to 17 months in jail after pleading guilty to dangerous driving and GBH, which, given the video, was hard to defeat with the "I didn't see him" defence.

The video is pretty awful for anyone to watch: if you want to know what it looks like when a bus sideswipes someone on a bicycle -when the bus isn't even going that fast.


The evening post says that the bus driver, Gavin Hill, has been disqualified from driving for 30 months, and will have to take an extended driving test afterwards. Apparently the action was "a moment of madness".

Well, we hope that Phil isn't suffering long-term consequences, and that the outcome does provide some reassurance that society frowns on such explicit attempts to cause death and injury.

Now, let us turn to today's other "moment of madness", this time by one David Lowrey, of Kingsway, St George, where the Evening Post says:   A VIOLENT motorist beat up a cyclist by the side of the road before getting someone to lie for him as he tried to escape conviction..

When we heard the "someone to lie for him" phrase we checked to see if David Lowrey was on the coalition cabinet, but no, he was someone who started a fight with someone on a bicycle who had the audacity to make some kind of gesture to the car as the car encroached into the cycle lane.

Again, "a moment of madness", this time with four months jail; no mention of driving penalty or what penalty he or the "independent witness" get for trying to pervert the course of justice (*)

If these court cases weren't in the papers on the same day, the "moment of madness" defence might sound somewhat realistic. As it is, it comes out looking a contrived.

For that reason, we had a look around to see where else the "moment of madness" defence had cropped up.

• Ron Davies, welsh secretary, robbed at knifepoint by a some people he went down to Clapham Common  with"a moment of madness"
• Sir John Guielgud, set up by the police who actually had undercover police trying to entrap men seeking a bit of discreet consensual sex, again "a moment of madness".
• Hugh Grant getting caught paying a prostitute for a bit of entertainment in a public lavatory while on a business trip without his wife.

There we have it then, two separate scenarios where defence lawyers recommend the "moment of madness" defence

1. You've rammed or assaulted someone on a bicycle and want to make it clear that normally you are a safe and docile driver and suddenly "a moment of madness" came over you. You didn't mean to cause physical injury and hope to be let off lightly.
2. You got caught by the police engaged in some outdoor sex act which the legal system at that time and place considered illegal. You want to imply that the fact the police caught you with your trousers down was not because you do it very often but because you "had a moment of madness" and you were very unlucky. You also don't want your political/acting/religious career ruined, so you have to pretend it was somehow an accident.

There you have it then, two situations where the "moment of madness" defence crops up. Can we note, then, that for the second of these sets of legal cases, nobody gets hurt. In fact, most of the participants in the situations seemed, at least to an extent, engaged in consensual acts. Whereas nobody volunteers to be run over by a bus at the bearpit, or head-butted by a complete stranger.

Either way, it's become a bit of a cliche. Please, defence lawyers, come up with some new phrase.

(*) On the topic of independent witnesses, can we remind everyone that not only do ex-spouses turn on you, but if you are having someone pretend to be a complete stranger so as to devalue the line up evidence, remember that as covered in Ugander et al., The Anatomy of the Facebook Social Graph, it's fairly easy to determine if the pairwise distance between you and the independent witness is only one or two hops, or the you are both parts of the same clique of acquaintances. Less formally: you can't say "I have never met this person" if you keep identifying each other as friends in facebook photos.

Update: for anyone in the mainstream media who is not actually appearing in the Leveson inquiry or in a 1:1 meeting with Don Murdoch, trying to contact us -please read more than one article on this site, especially the media corner, before emailing us. You will discover that you wouldn't consider us a serious and unbiased news outlet. Which, coincidentally, is exactly how we view the television and printed news outlets. 

Bus News update : driver in court, Wed Jan 4

Back in April, we posted about a bus that apparently was deliberately driven into a cyclist.

The court case against the driver is scheduled for Wed 4th January, at Bristol Crown Court No 7, at 11:00 or later -more details welcome. We'd also hope the cyclist involved has recovered.

Unlike the Evening Post, we do cover such things, and would welcome a full summary to bristol.traffic at gmail dot com, where it will make its way online.

On a more positive note, nobody on a bicycle or on foot was killed while walking or cycling round Bristol in 2011, which is an improvement on previous years, and makes London's terrible statistics even more significant, from the sixteen cyclists to the  many pedestrians, including one who was apparently killed by an HGV driver convicted of killing a cyclist only a year earlier.

Bristol has -despite some serious incidents- a better year. We also wish everyone that 2012 continues to not only have the same -zero- pedestrian and cyclist deaths, but that the number of injured drops too. If there is a difference between London and Bristol, it is that the police here are more supportive.

Happy 2012 from the Bristol Traffic team. 

The Mayor's Motor pays the bollard tax

According to the Evening Post (so it must be true), the Mayor's Car was driven into a bollard that should have got out of the way.

We extend our sympathies to the mayor -but at least he doesn't have to resort to public transport, as he has managed to sort out a replacement. We hope the bollard has third party insurance to cover this. If it was in any way damaged, it is the bollard's fault for being in the middle of the road and not being covered in hi-viz.

If the car really is written off, it may only be remembered in its two Bristol Traffic articles, one showing secret cabot circus parking, and another by a pub.

Let us mourn it. It shall not grace our pages again,



Regarding all those very unsympathetic comments where everyone seems to be against getting a new car on the basis that buying a second ford-fiesta with a non-personalised number plate and selling the AE1 plate off would actually earn money - fails to recognise the symbolic role of the mayor. Like the Crown herself, the mayor is a powerless figurehead whose role is to attend meaningless publicity events in vehicles that reflect the fact that the UK is a fading power.

As for the comments that the mayor should be riding a bicycle, remember that Cllr Gollup is the offical evening post spokesman of the Bikelash. He does not cycle.

Railwaypath Ghost Cyclist

We've been using the term Ghost Rider to describe someone who chooses to die on a bicycle, usually by RLJ-ing. The last video of someone on a bike crashing into a pedestrian causes us to look at the rest of taypet21's video collection. This person is a threat to the rest of the city. really.

Look at this video where he crashes into someone walking down the railway path. It's like he sees the women, and rather than try and slow down, he speeds up and runs into the screaming. If this was us, we'd destroy the evidence rather than put it up on youtube

Crash by the pump house

video up on youtube; no more details yet. This is by the Cumberland Basin flyover; that right hand lane is how you get over the bridge; the straight on lane is to the portway. There is a newly painted bike lane up to the old bridge (leading you to the Nova Scotia pub), but no give way markings for the cause.

Hope all is well.

Forward Planing

While the lights are red, an opportunity arises to take a photo of the Seahorse Pub, a pub that used to be part of the Smiles brewery chain, but had two features that distinguished from the Brewery tap across the road: a choice of non-Smiles beers and the Smiles Exhibition didn't run out as often

Sadly, someone cycling through a red light ruins the shot. Why is he doing it.

It starts to make sense: by cruising through early he avoids the problem of getting from the left hand lane to the right hand lane while two lanes of vehicles are trying to push through.

Of course, that leaves the problem of waiting at the bottom of St Michael's hill for the lights to change. Clipped in to the pedals, he either has to unclip and put a foot down, or do a track stand.

Or there's option three: lie down and take a rest. This provides an opportunity to give his cardiovascular system and his legs the rest they need before commencing the St Michael's Hill climb

Paying the Wingmirror and Bodywork taxes in one go.

Field Operative "TH" emails this photo of trouble on Bond Street South, outside the new Future Inns Hotel/Phoenix Court BCC Offices heading towards the Underpass in Temple Way at 5:00pm 10th May.

Delivery driver in the Mercedes Van ends up with a Peugot 207 cutting across him. The 207 lost his passenger mirror in the process.

Just to add to the situation, the Bus Driver thinks he can follow other cars by mounting the Central Reservation kerb to pass...

Not enough room - One sandwiched 207!

We express our sympathies to WN60ZXD, and welcome them to now owning a Montpelier-style vehicle. We must remind FirstBus drivers, especially that of WX05RVK that their vehicles are wider than cars, and when they go up on raised pavements and reservations, the vehicle tilts a bit too.

To stop this problem in future, we propose an awareness course for car drivers, teaching them that vans have a tendency to pull out without warning, and that buses not only have blind spots, they may not be fully aware of the width of their vehicle. Just as London has a "don't undertake lorries that come up behind you at ASLs" campaign for cyclists, we propose a "don't get stuck where a FirstBus bus tries to drive over a central reservation to get past your collision with a van". We believe that such an awareness program would be more cost-effective and beneficial than a "how wide your bus is" course to FirstBus drivers. 

Abbeywood: West Side Bollard Run

We sent our expendable cyclist up to Abbeywood again to see the other side of the MoD site/car park. Sadly, our fellow traveller, Kayla Maratty, would have been on her four week holiday, so if she's a UWE student, she wouldn't have got a chance to run this cyclist over.



Note how the cyclist swerves out of the cycle side before the first corner. After we took them into the MoD site where we got them to confess to being an enemy of the economy, we asked them about this. Apparently going round a blind corner on the wrong side of the path is stupid. Maybe, but S Gloucs has put the signs up, so follow it.

Further on, you can see the new bollards. Some now have coloured tape on, some reflectors. But it's moot. Their existence is now known and widely publicised. Nobody else is going to run into them, even in snow -unless the council moves them or adds some more -perhaps on that first corner?

Knowing of the existence of the feature, does our test subject obey the signs? Follow the approved lanes? No they don't! Instead they treat it as some kind of opportunity to go through them as if they were some kind of obstacle course, "practising singletrack manoeuvres at near-race-speed", they said, whatever that means. Such actions were wrong before the bollards went up, now that bollards are in, it should be a crime. And to think that the S Gloucs bollards actually encourage such action -that simply appals us.

Notice how we say S Gloucs bollards. We thought initially that these were MoD features, it being Ministry of Defence land and all (which is why cycle campaigner Terry Miller got detained by their site police for behaving suspiciously and taking photographs here last week). Yet as the video shows, the signs and bollards go on out of the site, right up to the A4174 Ring Road, one of the two proposed Ring Roads we actually got part of. That means it came from the council, presumably out of their cycling budget.

This is what introduces such a moral dilemma for us. It makes cyclists feel less welcome -good, and it doesn't take away any driving options -great. But is it enough? Apart from that one person who crashed into one, how many cyclists are going to give up their commute from this feature? And it stops us driving down the bike path here.

This is an ongoing topic and we will cover it more. Our experiment to see if anyone in S Gloucs is capable of reacting to reports of vehicles parked on the bike path is going well, so far, no reaction from anyone. But more research is needed.