Track Cars Take On London - Wallpapers

At The BHP Project we like rare, fast, obscure and crazy cars.

With this in mind, part two of the Project involves getting 4 track focused cars and seeing how good they are in a place that they should never really be taken to, Central London...

The video will be released in due time, but until then we've got two Wallpapers for you.

Download the picture above in 1920x1080

Download the picture below in 1920x1080

Don't forget to Like The BHP Project on Facebook

So which one would you pick? 

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Love Bristol Go Brent #3

As we said, the pavement provides extra parking options. First, note the bollards, They aren't designed to stop vehicles getting on to the pavement so much as to make it clear to pedestrians that turning vehicles can cut over that corner. Vans that want to park can just get up onto the pavement past the bollards


Some viewers may think "this road is four lanes wide in every direction, and the pavement is perfectly wide enough to have a good, segregated bike lane". Those people are missing the point.

  
The four-lane-wide road provides enough space for an HGV to do a U-turn.
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So letting it get up and park on the pavement in the direction it's going.

You couldn't do that if there was a cycle path here.

The sheer provision of a vast off-road "pavement" here is a fantastic facility for motorists. It's wide enough that street furniture can be kept far enough back to make parking along here easy -regardless of the length of your vehicle.

Bristol just lacks the imagination. Even that "let them park on the pavements" mayoral candidate explicitly mentioned Gloucester road as an example place where paveparking shouldn't be permitted.

Yet Gloucester Road is a shopping street -like this one in London- the provisioning of more pavement parking area is what is critical to keep it alive. Look at the one here -even with all this excellent paveparking it's barely surviving.

Love Bristol -go Brent #2

Continuing our tour of the best ideas from Brent, we want to highlight side roads that don't let pedestrians cross them

by doing this on a "shopping street", Brent makes sure that nobody who actually -insanely tries to walk to the shops will feel as unwelcome as they should be.
  
All it takes is a continual line of traffic, pig-pen barriers to make you feel unsafe, and no attempt to provide anything other than a dropped kerb.
 
The best bit? That wide pavement provides extra parking opportunities.

Love Bristol -go Brent

We went over in our van to see how leading edge councils were improving motoring conditions.

Brent, initially.

The first step is competely remove all front gardens and replace them with cars. This not only increass parking capacity by 50-100%, it makes it far more obvious to passers by who is the wealthiest. The house on the right with the Porsche, the 4x4 and the Audi is clearly more important than the toyota owners next door.
 
The other key isse is infrastructure provisioning.

Together with TfL, Brent and Harrow councils have made sure that the shopping areas are very accessible by cars, with laybys and two lanes on this, Kenton Road, for the shopping traffic.

As you can see, there are no cyclists and very few pedestrians -so that car traffic is essential to the livelihood of the remaning shops.

Brent -what are the cyclists complaining about

On our london trip to the Zil Lanes, we spotted in Kenton this segregated cycle lane

The barriers keep the cyclists safely separated from the moving cars in the foreground, and the dedicated shoppers parking lane and parking area behind. We can see they improve safety by the way that 80% of the barriers are bent or bashed -that's a lot of "cyclist hit a car" incidents that have been prevented.
 
Yes, for the 30 metres of this path, the cyclists of Brent have nothing to complain about
 
If we had an issue, notice in the left of the photo how there is a car parked up against the cycle sign. The addition of a pedestrian crossing and cycleway stops parking on the through-traffic lane, so reduces  the parking capacity of this shopping street from four cars in parallel (there's the other side of the road), to two cars. This is exactly the kind of anti-parking measures that are leading to the death of traditional high streets such as this.

the Zil Lanes of London

We had to use the range rover for a special delivery to London this week -the national coverage of Stokes Croft has expanded our customer base. If someone called "Boris" wants a four day old cheeseburger from Slix, we will oblige.

Over in London, we saw the first "Zil Lanes", lanes dedicated to exclusive use of important people.

We have has these for a while, "bus lanes", only the fact that bicycles are banned from here makes it better.


Before anyone asks, "how does the B.T team get to use them?", here's the answer.
 
Diplomatic plates

This sign is up in the Exhibition Road "Shared Space", which makes it extra special: we can share the space with any other vehicle with diplomatic plates. Lovely.

The "moment of madness" defence crops up in London

We see that in London a lorry driver managed to avoid any penalty for reversing over someone in a lorry with the reverse beep disabled, the reversing camera broken and the mirrors set up wrong - by playing the "moment of madness" defence:

Defence counsel Matthew Hardyman told the court his client had suffered from a “moment of madness”

There must be some legal symposium we must attend on "effective use of the 'moment of madness' defence", with speakers discussing how they used to explain various celebrities about engaging in a bit of paid or consensual sex with strangers -which is a key part of Stokes Croft's nightlife- or how they used it to explain some road-rage incident.

I you search for "told the court" and "moment of madness", it does seem to crop up surprisingly often.

In this particular case, however, we have a question for the defence: how you explain the failure of three separate safety devices as "a moment of madness", We'd love to know that -so the next time we get pulled over on the M4 roadworks for having defective lights, brakes, rear tyres and wing mirrors that are montpelier-normal, but which the traffic officer considered "missing".

Can you imagine explaining to the officer asking "why is your vehicle so unsafe" that the decision to drive from Stokes Croft to Birmingham in a vehicle in that state was "a moment of madness"?

It just wouldn't work, would it? MoM is the excuse for "being caught in-flagrante", a bit of road-rage, or "stabbing a relative to death".

The correct response when asked by the police why your van or lorry is unsafe is "I am a donor to the Conservative party and a part time magistrate". Works every time.

Reclaiming the Streets

There's a growing scandal in the press that an undercover policeman infiltrated the group Reclaim the Streets.

While we do not approve of the activities of these tax dodgers, we can't speak highly of the police infiltrating a group of lentil-eating- ippies just because their activities brought the traffic in city centres to a halt at peak hours.

If bringing the city to a halt a peak hours by blocking the streets with your vehicle is a crime -then we are all criminals. 

Look at the scene above: the M32 after 9am on a weekday. Brought to a halt. Is this a crime? No, it's commuting. the only thing wrong here is that we can't use the hard shoulder even though everyone is only doing 15 mph.

That's one reason we don't approve. Where will they draw the line? Start with the hippies, soon they will be trying to find out who kept torching speed cameras, attending meetings of the Association of British Drivers and keeping an eye on us patriots.

The other reason we don't approve: it's a complete waste of time and effort.

Imagine the the uncover police team christmas party as they all get together and discuss how they protected the nation from its enemies, inside and out

• "I infiltrated Real IRA and kept the Northern Ireland peace settlement alive."
• "I infiltrated a group of drug dealers and kept 500kg of cocaine out of Britain."
• "I infiltrated Reclaim the Streets and pedalled a human-powered sound system round Clapham."

You'd be laughed at and be so embarrassed you'd find excuses not to go to the following year's party. It's the bottom ring of undercover police work, worse even than that dire film Kindergarten Cop where Schwarzenegger goes undercover as a school teacher. At least he didn't have to cycle round south London on a three person bicycle where the one at the back powered a loudspeaker.

It's just not impressive. It's not the thing you sign up for is it? That's the really shocking thing: the government could be bothered to infiltrate these groups. We wouldn't. Especially now the Bristol Cycling Campaign have stopped holding their meetings in that room above the Cornubia Pub.

Fighting Back: why it doesn't work

People email us and say things. A lot of things, most of which we can't print, as they assume the team are some group of bicycle-people. Not so. it is just that we don't film from our own vehicles, so have to send out "expendable tax-dodgers" to get footage for us. Why don't we film ourselves? This video from London shows why.





As you can see videoing from the vehicle doesn't help

1. It stops you being able to make and take calls with the camera phone.
2. Holding a camera over a passenger while driving along makes it hard to maintain full speed, especially when you are hanging back to disagree with the cyclist.
3. The troublemakers all gang together when the police get involved

That's the worst part. Your own video can be used as evidence against you. As for the whole nature of this dispute -the tax dodger wing-mirror-taxing the smart car as it pulls out into his lane, well, if you have wing mirrors, you aren't a proper Bristol driver -a fact which the very presence of wing mirrors radiates to everyone nearby and puts you at a disadvantage in all right-of-way negotiations.



Anyone thinking of visiting the city -just stick some duct tape round the mirrors to create that local-driver look without having to actually do Richmond Road, Montpelier, at full speed.

More biggerer and betterer.

Bristol is often referred to by many ex Londoners as being like a "little London". While we can appreciate the comparison we at Bristol Traffic know that with the proper building of new bigger wider roads to allow more cars into the city it won't be long before Bristol becomes bigger and better than London. Better because we won't leave our motorways unfinished on the outskirts of the city. Ours will penetrate right into the heart of the city centre creating a vibrant city environment that everywhere else in the world could only dream of. After all we already know that car drivers are the only people who ever spend money in cities and allowing anyone else to get in their way is a sure way to help businesses lose trade.

We have a good start already in the M32 but there's more work to be done if our vision of the future is to come to fruition.

Here as a reminder of why the plan must be seen through is a short film by a young man highlighting where London failed to match up to our vision.

Sleeping with the enemy

We at Bristol Traffic never hesitate to drive where others may fear to tread in the pursuit of truth and justice for motorists. It is in no small part to our fearless reporting that the war on the motorist is finally being won but are always keeping a look out for any danger that the enemy will retaliate.

Which is why we were very concerned to hear about a splinter group that is being formed specifically with the aim of attacking the rights of the motorist to drive where we damn well please. Who else but the tax dodging, lycra lout, cyclists, always whinging about our hard taxed money being spent on cycling "farcilities" that they should be grateful for. It seems that they want cycling infrastructure that is as good as the Dutch model (which, incidentally, we were very disappointed to hear does not involve David Walliams's wife.)

The meeting of this splinter group was in a far away forbidding place designed to strike fear in the heart of any motorist, yet we were spurred on by the recent revelation that the police planted an informer into an environmental activist group. If they could do it then so could we and so we fuelled up the white van and headed east, braving the congestion charge and the danger that we may need to have sex with some of them (despite being confident that they were all certain to be mamils.)

Our fears were realised; not the sex part unfortunately, but the purpose and organisation of this subversive organisation. Calling themselves the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain, it was a group of diverse, passionate and probably even intelligent people that are trying to take road space away from the motorist and give it to pedestrians, cyclists and communities. We were disturbed that there were so many attendees and as far as we could tell, not one of them was actually wearing lycra (apart from us trying to blend in), in fact the ringleader was wearing a suit!

It may be humble beginnings but we really fear that this group could actually make a difference with this manifesto. Whatever you do, do not encourage this behaviour or talk about the set up of their "Embassy" or before you know it there will be 20mph zones and no pavement parking for starters.

Do you really want this to happen to Bristol's gloriously car centric streets?

The Bloomsbury Problem

Another issue we had with the Russel Square area is that this marked a clear attempt to bring cycle-friendly infrastructure into the inner city, rather than, as in Bristol, leave it places where we hope it doesn't get in the way of anyone important.

First, signs, encouraging cyclists to find their way round

Full green bike paths, with raised kerbs to make it slightly harder to accidentally park in them.

Junctions for the bicycles themselves, with no cyclists dismount signs

And here, worst of all, an "except cycles" get-out clause on a one way street. Not "except cycles, taxis and van drivers", but cycles only.

What is really depressing here is that the Camden council staff behind such schemese visited the proposed GBBN Whiteladies Road development, the one that will help motorists driving in to town by removing the zebra crossings in our way and making cycling more dangerous. We know this as we infiltrated the event, keeping track of what people were saying, and whether complaints were being dismissed -as expected- or actually listened to, and tried to slip our own ideas in to distract them.

On the topic of that camden council cycle team visit, can we extend our apologies to the woman driving the green nissan micra down WL road who was held up for fifteen seconds by the funny bicycle people. Yes, you were right to beep your horn at us for not being in the bike lane, even though cyclists don't have to cycle in them, they can cycle two abreast legally, and the traffic jam ahead meant you weren't losing any time. Yes, you were right to complain that eight people on bicycles at 08:50 on a weekday were causing utter chaos, which is why the local council had arranged the cyclist visit to during the quiet period mid-morning.  Sadly, some of the cycle troublemakers had spotted the flaw there and pressured for a rush hour visit, which is why you were held up by three people cycling two-abreast down whiteladies road.

Because we were trying to blend in with these subversives we did have to come up and argue with you while you were stopped at the traffic lights, as anything else would have aroused the suspicions of the rest of the group.

Sorry!

We didn't really mean to call you a selfish idiot who would clearly benefit from getting out of their car and trying to do some exercise! It's your right to get fat and stay unfit by driving to work and back, stopping only in the supermarket to buy ready-to-fry fast foods.

We didn't really want to dispute the niceties of the highway code and the fact that nowhere in it does it say "bicycles should be banned from our roads"  -because like you, we think it ought to! It was just something we had to do to blend in!

Walthamizing Russell Square

Crap Walking and Cycling in Waltham Forest recently popped over to inner London to denounce the area for having a parking space.

Interestingly, this bit of the city exists in our database, but it was actually so depressing to us we hadn't bothered to put up. Look at this, Malet Street, the heart of the student area, just E. of Russell Square.

1. There is only one free parking space for electric vehicles. 
2. You are limited to parking there for 2h only, which is barely enough for a family-funded arts student to finish three cafe lattes.
3. The fast moving bicycles endanger the paintwork on these premium vehicles. 

Yet to the left of the EV parking space, there is clearly enough space to put in four or five more charge points, enough to make a greener city. Yet it is taken up (even on a saturday) by a vast collection of bicycles -parked on our road tax funded roads- and a zebra crossing, again, tax dodgers stealing Road Tax space.

Slightly south, a row of borisbikes on a pavement buildout.

And in the university itself, some bicycle lockers for staff -even they are being encouraged to cycle.

Paul Dirac -Bristol's greatest physicist, apparently moved from Cambridge to Florida in a dispute over allocated parking spaces. When are the London universities going to realise that the only way to attract and retain the best staff, and the most well-funded students, is by providing parking for motor vehicles?

Letter to Auto Express

I don't often feel compelled to write in to motoring magazines. Actually, I tell a lie. I often feel compelled, but rarely follow through with the desire.

However, Auto Express columnist Mike Rutherford (who also writes for The Times and The Telegraph) has finally irritated me enough to put digit to keyboard in his column for the 17-23 June issue of Auto Express. I shan't replicate his column in full - Mr Rutherdford aside the magazine is still one of the better motoring titles out there and this issue has an interesting comparison test between old and new Mazda MX-5s. But I digress.

Mr Rutherford writes: "If we're to believe those in authority and their ecomental pals, global warming is the greatest threat to mankind. The allegation is that the phenomenon will kill untold millions of people and places. What's more, some mentalist 'experts' deviously give the impression that CO2 emissions from 'murderous' motor cars are largely or entirely to blame for scorching the earth and allowing the planet and its inhabitants to crash and burn.

"I hear what they're saying, and I acknowledge their right to express their own opinions and predictions. But can we have less of the crystal ball gazing and scaremongering, and more of the hard facts, please? Where is the unbiased, incontrovertible, compelling evidence which proves beyond doubt that global warming will, on its own, destroy earth and mankind?"

He goes on to say: "When was the last time you actually heard any of the leading political parties even mention the T word [transport], let alone say what, if elected, they intend to do with the roads, rails, waterways and sky routes?"

The rest of his column devolved into a rather dull bash at politicians who've done far worse things than to not mention transport policy in their manifestos. Anyway, after adding weeks, months and years worth of straw with Mr Rutherford's smug columns, the camel's back finally succummed:

"Perhaps if Mike Rutherford is to get the unbiased evidence of man-made global warming he desires, he should first avoid biasing his column too far in the other direction. Labelling those who consider motor vehicles to be a large component of global warming "mentalists" is ignorant and arrogant. Regardless of whether Mr Rutherford likes their findings or not, these are still the findings of scientists which still hold more weight than the smug rantings of a mouthy motoring journalist. Indeed, Mr Rutherford is not even being forced to believe these findings and there are many, many other theories out there which he conveniently ignores in order to propogate an opinion that has already been done to death in the motoring media.

"Oh, and last time I checked, Mayor of London Boris Johnson was a Conservative MP, and he mentions "the T word" [transport] quite frequently, and I seem to remember his transport policy was instrumental in his election as Mayor. Perhaps Mr Rutherford is looking in the wrong places for his own research.

"Global warming probably didn't kill the dinosaurs, but perhaps Mr Rutherford is worried that environmental issues will wipe out the dinosaur journalists?"

It remains to be seen whether my letter will merit inclusion in the comments section of the magazine, but if it does I'll update the blog with the response, if any. Who knows, I may even receive an email from Mr Rutherford himself.