Not participating in the daily mail survelliance infrastructure

The Bristol Traffic Project is, as we have repeatedly declared, a community-sourced police state, using the datacentre infrastructure of our strategic partners Google. Google have published some of their datacentre photographs, for people to look at while reading about how google use atomic clocks to implement causal consistency between locations. The reason that Google's "Spanner" system does this is to ensure that all their computers round the world have a consistent view of "when" they are.

The Bristol Evening Post, with whom we no longer have any strategic relationship, hasn't needed atomic clocks to implement a global-scale consistency model; indeed their articles do not usually implement causal consistency; the notion that actions (e.g burning carbon fuels) have side effects that happen afterwards (climate change). Nor are they eventually Consistent: at no point in the future will the various articles and newspapers of the daily mail portfolio ever make coherent sense.

This is not news; it is not important. Except now, anyone logging in to the thisisbristol web site to add a balanced comment about how Cllr Gollop is going back on his word of being an anti-cycling councillor and now pandering to the lycra-criminals is, if they use a gmail.com email address, asked to sign in with their "google ID".

And when you do that, what rights does Google say the thisisbristol web site -hence the Evening Post and the rest of the Daily Mail portfolio say that they want to have to your account:

TINReg is requesting permission to:

•     Manage your tasks
•     View your email address
•     View basic information about your account
•     Manage your contacts
•     Know who you are on Google

What does that mean? It means the Daily Mail/this-is- set of web sites want to:

Manage your tasks
Have the ability to read and update your todo list in google calendar.

View your email address
See your email address

View basic information about your account
See what your claimed gender and age is.

Manage your contacts
see below

Know who you are on Google
See who you say you are

It's that "Manage your contacts" one that worries us. Because Gmail builds up a list of contacts automatically, based who sends you email and who you email yourself, the google contact list is really "a list of who you communicate with".

That's a really interesting piece of information. Know that and they can start comparing your contacts list with the other people who comment on the paper.  And because they have the contacts list of those commenters, the site could even find common contacts between two commenters  -even in the case where the two commenters do not know each other directly. That is, in graph-theory terms, one degree of separation. Before long they'll have built up a graph of the communications between people in the city, which is pretty valuable stuff. Facebook have that to an extent, but only between people who explicitly declare each other as friends. Even so, that subset of links was enough for Facebook to show that there is usually a four-hop connection between any two people in the US: four degrees of separation. 

If the entire portfolio of the Daily Mail web sites start collecting your email address and those of all you talk to, they stand a good chance of building up a map of who talks to who amongst all people who log in and comment in any of their web sites.

We don't trust the organisation. It's not that we don't agree with their political objectives: the imprisonment of subversives, the stance they take against lycra-criminals, 20 mph speed limits and other potential criminals. It's just that we don't see why they need to go behind our backs and build up a graph of everyone who comments on the paper to achieve those goals. It's the people who don't read the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday, the Evening Post, and their other regional counterparts that we need to worry about.

This is what Bristol Traffic is: a police state run by volunteers! There is no need for the DM sites to spy on us -not when we report the anti-motoring activities that the city is up to.

Subversives infiltrate the B.E.P web site

Only last week, did our hero, Bob Bull, self-proclaimed prophet of the Association of British Drivers, spell out the truth about who pays for our roads.

MANY cyclists claim incorrectly that they contribute to road costs. The maths is simple: motorists' contribution more than £40 billion, road expenditure £10 billion per year.
The claim that they are zero rated along with electric cars is naive.
Do they really think the government will give up the £40 billion?
They will probably introduce road pricing which cyclists should pay. With regard to laws many cyclists remove bell and lights and those with them don't use them, it is also the law to stop at red lights but many don't obey that either.
They also ride on the pavement which is also illegal.
Bob Bull

Yet what do we see now, a response by one "Katy Boundary" of Stokes Croft:

THE Post's anti-cyclist letter writer, Bob Bull, again denounces cyclists for not being taxed. I await his denunciation of all class-A VED cars again for taking up a lane despite the fact that they pay no car tax a year.
Does he fume at being stuck behind a Toyota Prius? Does he resent having his right to park taken away by a Fiat 500 occupying a space that would otherwise be free? He should try cycling and learn to be more relaxed.
Every one of us who pays council tax in the city has paid for the roads. Given Mr Bull appears to be a resident of Portishead, it is he who has not paid to use the streets of our city.
Katy Boundary
Stokes Croft

Curiously, we have the original of the letter, which has a slightly different final paragraph:

All roads in Bristol that aren't managed by the Highways Agency are funded by Bristol City Council: every one of us who pays council tax in the city has payed for them. Given the Bob Bull appears to be a resident of Portishead, it is he who has not paid to use the streets of our city. 

Either way, this letter writer is wrong

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
along, 5
making, 5
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
coming, 5
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
path, 4
work, 4
keep, 4
turn, 4
fit, 4
little, 4
manner, 4
stop, 4
considerate, 4
bad, 4
protect, 4
near, 4
left, 4
possible, 4
cooper, 4
sighted, 4
such, 4
maybe, 4
realise, 4
crossings, 4
anyone, 4
black, 4
morning, 4
outside, 4
period, 4
dangers, 4
myself, 4
driver, 4
seems, 4
start, 4
trying, 4
again, 4
small, 4
pass, 4
attitudes, 4
taken, 4
22, 4
might, 4
someone, 4
insurance, 4
really, 4
officers, 4
chairman, 4
idiots, 4
both, 4
point, 4
else, 4
themselves, 4
once, 4
others, 4
danger, 4
majority, 4
move, 4
junction, 4
south, 4
gear, 4
let's, 4
wear, 4
well, 4
add, 4
avoid, 4
pressure, 4
getting, 4
roads, 4
authority, 4
dressed, 4
friends, 4
understand, 4
child, 3
four, 3
consider, 3
school, 3
clothes, 3
above, 3
increasing, 3
ever, 3
met, 3
i'd, 3
until, 3
damage, 3
badly, 3
wrong, 3
regularly, 3
driving, 3
encourage, 3
got, 3
free, 3
dogs, 3
likely, 3
mind, 3
seem, 3
responsible, 3
regular, 3
dog, 3
wearing, 3
result, 3
seven, 3
months, 3
support, 3
head, 3
daily, 3
did, 3
groups, 3
live, 3
believes, 3
claim, 3
pulled, 3
seriously, 3
quite, 3
care, 3
training, 3
massive, 3
saving, 3
vote, 3
given, 3
15, 3
especially, 3
drive, 3
cannot, 3
wheels, 3
can't, 3
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
scooter, 3
rest, 3
sustainable, 3
set, 3
meeting, 3
straight, 3
user, 3
spend, 3
love, 3
projects, 3
continue, 3
behave, 3
long, 3
crackdown, 3
planet, 3
called, 3
bishopston, 3
lane, 3
gloucestershire, 3
menace, 3
code, 3
arrogance, 3
jump, 3
let, 3
great, 3
next, 3
doubling, 3
started, 3
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
ignoring, 2
hospital, 2
call, 2
aware, 2
adult, 2
hold, 2
room, 2
err, 2
route, 2
end, 2
jumping, 2
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
causing, 2
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
launched, 2
suggest, 2
several, 2
published, 2
meads, 2
failing, 2
yes, 2
royal, 2
possibly, 2
officer, 2
pushbike, 2
footway, 2
efforts, 2
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
starting, 2
forget, 2
caused, 2
off-road, 2
acting, 2
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
try, 2
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
whizzing, 1
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
went, 1
luck, 1
councils, 1
husband, 1
bodywork, 1
borne, 1
two-hour, 1
forth, 1
splashed, 1
yesterday, 1
campaigns, 1
ancient, 1
hoodie, 1
people's, 1
wanted, 1
lothian, 1
bedminster, 1
aspire, 1
baltic, 1
onto, 1
speeds, 1
rant, 1
illustrate, 1
needed, 1
tom, 1
john, 1
bitter, 1
western, 1
helen, 1
showed, 1
classes, 1
silly, 1
ran, 1
modern, 1
anybody, 1
talking, 1
jacobs, 1
seek, 1
relatively, 1
cyclists:, 1
hub, 1
racers, 1
derek, 1
responsibly, 1
rides, 1
rider, 1
'fact', 1
blue, 1
though, 1
wells, 1
victoria, 1
letter, 1
exercises, 1
7am, 1
appalled, 1
definitely, 1
laid, 1
lancashire, 1
notion, 1
fitted, 1
fingers, 1
undue, 1
radio, 1
discourteous, 1
henleaze, 1
abreast, 1
busy, 1
appreciated, 1
rich, 1
adequate, 1
wide, 1
illegality, 1
runs, 1
idiotic, 1
children's, 1
three-year, 1
hasten, 1
decides, 1
swept, 1
1960s, 1
horrendous, 1
pete, 1
away, 1
sail, 1
there's, 1
pets, 1
southmead, 1
terms, 1
darnton, 1
recent, 1
news, 1
improve, 1
hours, 1
fault, 1
faces, 1
presumably, 1
council's, 1
irresponsible, 1
initiative, 1
maudlin, 1
infirm, 1
speak, 1
basis, 1
roper, 1
referendum, 1
quickly, 1
confident, 1
parents, 1
lovely, 1
tangible, 1
169, 1
personally, 1
two-wheeled, 1
publicly, 1
suitably, 1
employ, 1
voice, 1
overtaking, 1
obeying, 1
plates, 1
wheel, 1
kit, 1
butter, 1
hopping, 1
academic, 1
claims, 1
800, 1
spurred, 1
assigned, 1
goggles, 1
incentive, 1
zero-tolerance, 1
lockleaze, 1
ham, 1
emphasis, 1
board, 1
gave, 1
bands, 1
posed, 1
wanting, 1
unique, 1
advanced, 1
desire, 1
58, 1
54, 1
performing, 1
50, 1
steps, 1
beneficial, 1
elderly, 1
25000, 1
fog, 1
christmas, 1
co-existing, 1
corn, 1
predicting, 1
bolt, 1
plus, 1
afternoon, 1
lemmings, 1
22m, 1
statements, 1
presence, 1
delighted, 1
legislation, 1
transform, 1
launching, 1
bert, 1
form, 1
offer, 1
becoming, 1
ford, 1
failure, 1
true, 1
matt-black, 1
branded, 1
else's, 1
maximum, 1
gould, 1
whisker, 1
passenger, 1
adopt, 1
proven, 1
promised, 1
blatantly, 1
looked, 1
role, 1
holding, 1
test, 1
polite, 1
trailers, 1
maimed, 1
journey, 1
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
equipment, 1
intends, 1
potential, 1
davies, 1
wonder, 1
jungle, 1
handing, 1
trace, 1
opposite, 1
clearer, 1
importantly, 1
complaints, 1
pages, 1
surprising, 1
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
northern, 1
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
drink-drive, 1
gripe, 1
stunt, 1
alternative, 1
injuries, 1
tables, 1
shouting, 1
oldland, 1
deliberately, 1
build, 1
'shared, 1
matters, 1
knock, 1
imposed, 1
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
improved, 1
general, 1
present, 1
unlike, 1
dodge, 1
harder, 1
nobody's, 1
workplaces, 1
helped, 1
began, 1
pauls, 1
member, 1
party, 1
gets, 1
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

Introducing : Evening Post Bingo!

We are excited to announce -in collaboration with our partners the Bristol Evening Post, a new form of entertainment: Evening Post Bingo!

The basic concept is simple, here is the outline

1. Every few days the Evening Post will print a fictional letter or article pretending to be an ill-informed rant against bicycles. They are clearly spoofs, but some people, motorists and tax-dodgers alike, fall for them and try to argue the details with each other in the comments.
2. This week, for example, we have made one up called "they should pay road tax!". 
3. Evening Post Bingo! players look in the article for the key phrases on their bingo sheets, then the comments
4. If all of them are found -either in the article or comments, enter your own comment, "Bingo!", and the list of phrases you were looking for.
5. Do not attempt to engage in any form of debate in the comments itself, as this is like trying to explain Quantitive Easing to a chimpanzee -or what a Pasty is to a member of the cabinet.
6. In our weekly round-up of the evening post articles, we will credit the first Bingo winner of every article.

Bingo card generation will be fully automated; the code will be open sourced on Github shortly.Participants will be able to generate their own bingo cards at home, and other regions will be able to provide their own keyword lists that don't refer to Gloucester, Stapleton, or Coronation Roads

For now, here are some example cards, each of which can be used by anyone. These have all been machine generated, and are free from any human bias.

mandatory insurance
lycra-lout
abusive
unlit
criminals

against the law
selfish
council conspiracy
pavement cyclist
injure pedestrians

pavement
cause congestion
selfish
persecuted motorists
spoiled by the council

government money wasted
free-loaders
mandatory insurance
tax-dodgers
lawless

20mph
smug
gloucester road
these cyclists
cause congestion

stay in the cycle lane
danger to others
persecuted motorists
time someone stood up to them
some of my best friends are cyclists

We'll be publishing the source and keyword list later -the keyword list is where we'd like some extra contributions.

We are also considering fully automating our Evening Post article writing process. This would be based on that work by our strategic partner, Google, as discussed in The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Data [Norvig 2009]. The idea is that with enough of a collection of evening post, daily mail and other articles on cycling, it will be possible to generate valid sentences based purely on statistical knowledge of past sentences. The bingo cards are merely a first step in this process.

Evening Post; Why not a cycle free day?

In the Evening Post' singlehanded counterattack to the "cities fit for cycling" campaign coming out of London, another "Trusted Source", Roy, the disgruntled motorist!, who again wants bicycles banned from our streets, at least for a day a week.

Roy starts off with,

All too often Bristol boasts how cycle friendly it is. Is this really a good thing? Myself, and many colleagues and friends disagree strongly.

We often whine about them in the pubs too. Don't forget that drink-driving laws discriminate against us on the way home from those same pubs.

Now before I go any further, I must point out that I am a part-time cyclist, and when cycling I aim to stay out of the way of proper road users by sticking to cycle paths and lanes wherever possible

The classic "I used to cycle" opener is right up there with the "some of my best friends are cyclists" phrase, which the EP is normally most happy with. We don't say either as they are not true, and the phrases come over like the head of the UK catholic church saying "some my best friends are gay" before denouncing the right of two men to hold hands in public. We do say "some of our best customers come from the catholic clergy", but that's another topic.

Everyday I experience horrendous behaviour from cyclists. Considering they are vulnerable, they often risk their lives jumping red lights, undertaking at junctions, hopping on and off of pavements at their convenience and generally getting in the way of the legitimate road user. I realise not all cyclists behave like this, just the vast majority, especially the Lycra ones who think they are as wide as cars!

Red lights, Lycra, pavements, in the way. Check.  We are going to write some Evening Post bingo cards for these letters -or perhaps an automated evening post letter generator.

I also appreciate not all us car drivers are saints as the odd couple let us down.

Don't forget us van drivers here!

I lay part of the blame with Bristol City Council for trying too hard to please cyclists and look trendy. All these advanced starting grids at traffic lights is the dumbest idea yet. Encouraging the roads slowest users to blatantly sit right in the way of the cars before the lights change, then get in the way of our desire to get somewhere quick. That is, when the cyclist obeys the lights!!!

Now we are confused. Either the cyclists sit in your way in the ASL or they run the lights. You can't complain about both at the same time. It's like saying "50% tax rate for me is too high" and "HRMC keep trying to make us pay tax"

Another gripe is the fact that despite all the cycle lanes on pavements, cyclists still use our road.

Pavements. In or out?

Coronation Road is a prime example. A few months back I was following a lorry along there, who was struggling to get past a dad and two young boys cycling along the road. The lorry eventually passed, narrowly missing the boys. I tried to tell the father this fact, but was met with typical cyclist arrogance.

Ah, Coronation Road. We've covered that before, especially how the mature trees do not make this a cycle path. Because of those trees, it's hard to to say "They should cycle on the pavement there", especially when you shout out the window. Just sound your horn a bit instead.

It should be law to stick to a cycle lane where provided, to protect the cyclist, and more importantly, improve the car drivers progress.

Exactly. There are more people on cycles than ever before -and have you noticed congestion gets worse? Congestion costs our country twenty billion pounds a year -and it's all the cyclists fault.

I feel there needs to be more legislation to protect the proper road user from the menace cyclist. To start with, cyclists should have insurance. Can you imagine the damage they could do to a cars paintwork if they were to get in the way?

Don't use the "get in the way" phrase, as it's one of those "I may need to run them over" claims that the police get back to later. We prefer "crash into our parked car". Actually, this gives an idea. Why not advocate strict liability -whenever a cyclist hits a car, it's their fault!

Bodywork repair costs a lot these days. I find it harder by the day to avoid cyclists who flout the highway code. They should also be made to pay a small tax, and have a registration plate of some description. This would help to hold them accountable for the accidents they cause. The tax could pay for cycle wardens to fine them every time they break the law.

Registration, license, tax. Three more bingo items ticked off. And a new one; cycle wardens. Nice idea. But how to stop them ticketing cars for things too?

I would also like to add, cyclists are also a menace on the pavement.

Again, inconsistent arguments. Either they are on the road when you are driving or they are on the pavement when you are walking. You have to pick your point of view and argue with it: speeding on-road criminals, slow moving families, pavement cyclists or lycra louts. Pick one, not criticise them for: stopping at ASLs, running red lights, being on the road, not being on the road, wearing lycra, not wearing hi-viz. Right now the letter just comes over as an ill-informed rant, not an attempt to communicate your issues to people outside your two mates in a pub.

I'm sure many readers would agree. Trying to walk near Temple Meads station is a gamble. If you think I am anti-cyclist you would be right.

An anti-cyclist part-time cyclist. Now this does make our brain explode. This we would like to see. Someone cycling on the pavement shouting "get off the pavement" at himself, going onto the road and then shouting "get on the pavement!". Please send videos of Roy to the usual address.

Years of trying to avoid their antics have made me this way. I am all for saving the environment, but please do it in a lawful, polite manner, and stay off the road where possible. Do not undertake where its dangerous, obey road signs and traffic lights and respect the car driver who funds the cycle lanes you fail to use!!! Do all this and we can all be friends!

Roy, the disgruntled motorist!

We're not actually sure that people cycle to save the environment, though it makes a nice outgroup to explain why they cycle and we, the important people, don't. We prefer to say "we are not against unimportant people, but why do they have to hold us up"


Summary: badly argued, not that entertaining. The Evening Post is losing its edge. Must try harder.

Let's have a vote to outlaw them

There's a letter in the BEP today, that warmed our hearts. While the city-folk in London are trying to organise a "save the cyclists" campaign, we in Bristol are doing what everyone really wants -trying to make cycling a crime.

I THOUGHT we were living in a democracy? A place where majority decision rules? So let us consider cyclists. I have yet to hear of a cyclist that rides according to the law. Every single one I see cuts through red lights like a knife through butter. It is almost as if they do this to target pedestrians deliberately, as they then switch straight on to the pavement, and then back and forth to the road.
Let's consider the law? It's illegal to ride without lights. It's illegal to ride without a helmet and high visibility clothes. It's illegal to ride more than 30cm from the kerb. It's illegal to ride the wrong way down one-way streets, to squeeze past standing traffic, pavement ride and run the lights. Rule 169 of the Highway Code also insists that cyclists must give way to motorists as they are faster. £20 billion of damage to business is caused by traffic jams and cyclists are the main cause.
The government has said that it plans to throw a whopping £26 million at these rogues "to make them safer." How about spending some money on the poor down-trodden motorist?
I propose a vote, since we're living in a democracy. I propose we have a referendum on cycling (even if it is just a local one that results in a by-law) and we vote to outlaw bicycles for good. No good can come of them. Why bother to complain about road tax and insurance? They won't pay it even if it gets made into law. Who knows how many pedestrians they have killed and injured over the years? There are more motorists than cyclists, it makes perfect sense to just ban them!
TPR Henry

This is heartwarming. Ignoring the fact that he is completely ignorant of what is the law (distance from kerb, helmets, hi-viz filtering), what is he is saying is what should be the law.

To us, TPR Henry's rant about legality only slightly touches the real issue: bicycles hold up cars. Cyclists are the main cause of traffic jams -that and the lights which are there fo those other tax-dodgers, the pedestrians.

We celebrate TPR Henry for daring to speak the truth. And Evening Post for having the strength to resist the populist campaigns in the Times, even the BBC is starting to join in. Only the BEP is strong enough to resist these criminals!

Dear ThisisBristol: It's not April 1st yet ....

Bristol's favourite tabloid website jumped the gun a bit tonight by letting their April Fools day 'joke' about a fake cycling story out of the bag a bit early:

Needless to say, in the digital world of the interweb, speed is everything and the offending boo-boo was quickly deleted. That's fast, but not as fast as this Bristol Traffic Blog correspondent's finger was in hitting Print Screen button for your enjoyment. Come to think of it, pretty unfunny 'joke' ?.

Brian Rogers of Kingswood: speaking the truth

We've been a bit quiet recently. The main problem: thinking of new things to say.

Everyone has this problem. Take this well thought out letter from Brian Rogers of Kingswood.

It certainly pushes our buttons:

1. affluent middle classes cycling
2. holding up important people on their way to work
3. tax-payer funded lycra clad louts
4. sanctimonious, car-hating people
5. fill up the car parks

That would be a good article: tax dodging affluent (actually, this is probably true), car hating, and driving to our favourite parking spaces. It would make a good article, and we have formally invited Brian to actually write for us. All he'd need is "in our lane", "red light jumping" and "speeding along too fast" and we'd win this week's Daily Mail "lycra lout" bingo.

Of course, the same day that George "coke" Osborne announces that air passenger duty won't be applied to people flying in and out of the city on private planes is particularly bad timing for the tax-payer funded text. Remember: those people who live in Monaco and fly in for three days a week may retain non-resident tax payer status, but they hold up the economy, and adding £30/week on the already outrageous cost of (tax free) jet fuel would force them stop flying in to the UK at all.

Brian needs to work on his timing a bit there.

Furthermore, a quick web search shows that he wrote pretty much the same letter  a year ago.

 irresponsible for the city council to pour tax payers' funds into a cycling track that is, well, just a hobby for a privileged and sanctimonious few?

See? The same problem we have. There's only so much orginality you can do from one point-of-vitriol. Brian is having trouble writing the same letter once a year -you can imagine how hard it us for us.

Maybe its time for the team to retire

Southville's runner problem

Things must be a bit quiet in the Cyclist/Pedestrian wars right now, so the Evening Post has had to concentrate on that other bubbling issue: runners running along pavements.

Mark1864 makes a comment "This is ironic for the EP. A bunch of pedestrians moving faster than other pedestrians are causing problems on the pavement." We think we know who this person is. And yes, it is funny. This is the best set of comments in the paper. Despite the best efforts to turn this into the usual cyclists on the pavement debate, it's mostly pedestrian vs faster moving pedestrian.

One constructive comment from bobob03 is "There are quite a lot of pavements that hardly get any use along the ring road between the M32 and Emersons Green ." Yes, we love the idea of a large group of runners driving from Southville to the A4174 ring-road for an evenings run, except for the small detail that on a weekday evening that drive will take about 45 minutes. Plus the fact that the A4174 ring road is about as exciting as spending an afternoon with an elderly relative who keeps forgetting who you are and repeating the same conversation, again and again.

Anyway, while we are smirking at the comments, we have a fear. These runner groups, who go along in big packs, talking to each other, may form a militant "Bristol Runners Association", who will then go on and demand things like the right to run along pavements in the city -0ur parking areas. Then they'll want zebra crossings retained, rather than pelican crossings, so they don't have to spend three minutes running on the spot waiting for the lights to change.

Better to nip this in the bud right now.

Bristol's Most Determined Paveparker

Here at the traffic blog we applaud the British stiff-upper lip and our relentless desire to carry on as normal in difficult circumstances. It's summed up at the end of Carry On Up the Khyber, with Sid James and the gang enjoying a dinner party whilst the natives attack and the building crumbles around them. So when the Bristol Evening Post had their old brick print hall demolished, we naturally thought it might signal the end of their hypocritical rants about pavement cycling whilst casually ignoring the car paveparking (and pavedriving) that went on under their very noses. Apparently in Bristol cycling on the pavement is the most heinous crime a cyclist can commit, and we should all be heavily fined,locked up and subjected to torture (eg having to watch the X Factor endlessly). But, it's okay to squeeze a car or two into any available pavement space.

So we can but admire this determined paveparker in the photo who managed to drive up the pavement without knocking anyone over and reverse their vehicle onto it's little platform. Well done!. The drab grey monolithic print hall may be gone, but paveparking space is still available. Pavement cycling is just evil, but paveparking like this is so cooooool....

Laura Local: our favourite new tier-3 provincial journalist

We feel really sorry for the Bristol Evening Post. Most of the real journalists have moved on, leaving only a few people who are actually valued for their knowledge of the area and their willingness to type what senior management want them to write (Ian Onion), and, to replace the others, some unpaid interns trying to learn how to write HTML content to put local journalism as an item on their resume.

In the latter category, then, can we welcome Laura Local, who is now our favourite third-tier reporter for the Redland People subsidiary web site of the Evening Post. We think "redland people" is a bit overambitious, as it implies all the residents check it every morning saying "what's happened in our part of the city?", but that doesn't happen. Nothing much happens there except when some drunk students put some traffic cones on some cars, or the helicopter over stokes croft keeps people awake. Even then, reading about in the Redland People site isn't the way most people discuss some items. In fact, given their readership count, we believe the site would be called "Redland Eight People"; the eight being friends and family of the authors.

Laura, we are pleased to see, is trying hard to get the audience into double digits by printing an anti-cyclist rant. We do that ourselves, which is why our daily audience is in the high double digits, and we can see why a commercial site that tries to make money through advertising revenue would aspire to be as successful. Hence this lovely article, Redland cyclists among the worst in the Bristol? Here's the opening paragraph

I was turning right out of North Road by the Arches when a cyclist, who wasn't wearing a helmet I hasten to add, whizzed by in the middle of the road heading the direction I wanted to go - towards Gloucester Road. I pulled out behind him, as I would have done had he been a car and he stopped in front of me all of a sudden and started mouthing off before jumping the red light.

Maybe I was a little too close to him when I pulled out but I felt any criticism was rich coming from a guy who was bombing down the centre of the road without a helmet and straight through a red light!

We aren't going to defend the tax-dodger, but we will provide some constructive feedback to the author

1. It's not actually a legal requirement to wear a helmet. The only time you should criticise them for not wearing a helmet is when someone gets run over by an HGV driver on the phone, then you can say in the daily mail comments section "were they wearing a helmet" and so absolve the whole of society for their death. We do.
2. It's not illegal to cycle down the middle of a lane. Yes, it annoys us as it stops us driving above 25 mph, but for the troublemakers, it gives them more options avoiding being hit by redland residents who are too lazy to drive to the gloucester road shops, and who open their doors without looking or pull out without indicating.
3. If you were the first vehicle to pull out, and you were parked in the ASL under the arch itself, the cyclist may have crossed the traffic light while it was still green, then if you pulled out aggressively he may have had some reason to express concern.
4. Don't ever admit in print something like "Maybe I was a little too close to him when I pulled out." It removes your ability to take the moral high ground. We never discuss our own driving actions for this reason, or make videos from our van -the police might want them.
5. Gloucester Road isn't Redland. It's Bishopston, on one side, St Andrews on the other. When when it becomes Cheltenham Road it's called "the arches" until you end up on the disputed Cotham/Montpelier/Stokes Croft region where the new Tesco is. Not Redland. If you have to drive outside your own reporting area just to get content to rant about, well, that may show some weaknesses in the "Redland cyclists amongst the worst in Bristol" story. We recommend spending some time in Cotham Hill, which, while again not quite Redland, is full of pedestrians, cyclists, school-run parents and us vans, so creating a lovely mix for new articles, such as "Redland Van drivers amongst the worst in Bristol?", "Redland students amongst the worst pedestrians in Bristol", and of course "Redland school-run parents amongst the worst in Bristol". Together this will keep your article quota fulfilled for a month with only one morning's worth of research. Or you could walk along Chandos Road and have a geographically correct region for the "Redland parkers amongst the worst in Bristol" article.
6. Do try and back up your articles with photos other than faded bike path signs that may convince everyone, motorist and cyclists alike, that Bristol's cycling facilities are dire.
7. If you do want to get a video of someone cycling through the red lights on that stretch of Gloucester Road, stand there with a camera on a weekday evening and wait for one lights cycle: it's not hard.

Anyway, Laura -welcome to the tier-3 anti cycling rant pages of Bristol. Those of us already in the business welcome new competitors, as it keeps us on our toes. Just try a bit harder and we might even feel slightly threatened.

Dear Evening Post Editorial Staff....

We've been reading about your obsession with tax-dodging cyclists riding on pavements for a while now. Okay, so we know it's illegal. So is driving and parking on the pavement. Take a look at the picture above - you may be familiar with the building in shot. We have a very simple question for you:

Is driving and parking on the pavement more or less risky than riding a bicycle on it?.

If you think it's a greater risk (heaven forbid that a pedestrian might get knocked over by one of those cars perpetually tucked into the side of your building), then why not write a series of articles about the dangers of 'paveparking' in your publication?.