The R242AAC incident: the outcome

There's an article in the Independentsaying "Helmet Cameras are useless and the police can't do anything with the videos". Sadly we fear this is untrue: the police can prosecute drivers with the videos -if they choose to do so. The fact that most of the country hasn't seen any such prosecutions is due to the police, not the law.

Sadly, because Bristol police do intervene. Here is the sentencing letter from a small incident in which the car R242AAC forgot to give way to cyclists on a roundabout. We have covered this here and here.


 

Case against Anthony Butterworth, 

I am writing to let you know what has happened in this case in which you are a witness.

At the hearing on 30th December 2011 at North Avon Magistrates Court, Anthony Butterworth pleaded guilty to the following charges:

• Drive a mechanically propelled vehicle on a road/in a public place without due care and attention.

Anthony Butterworth was sentenced as follows

• To pay £375 fine

• Victim surcharge £15

• To pay £35 costs

• Given 5 penalty points.

...etc.

Five penalty points merely for nearly running two cyclists over? It's that -and the impact on the driver's insurance that hurts.

As a reminder, here is the incident in question:



Admittedly, he did pull straight out onto the roundabout without looking, but it was a quiet bank holiday. He had no reason to expect people to be on bicycles at that time in the morning.

The war on the motorists will not be over while the police are using helmet camera videos to impose fines and penalty points on law-abiding motorists!

We actually spoke to the parent who made the video, and got this statement:

"I am pleased that finally this driver was punished for their actions. The police and Jon Rogers were very supportive all through this process -going to a lot of effort to track down and prosecute the driver. I would like to thank everyone involved.

As you can see from the video, my son was wearing a helmet, and he has taken part in the council-backed cycling courses, which instruct children how to cycle safely in our city. 

As you can also see, this does nothing to address the fact that some drivers are selfish and dangerous. You can tell people what the safe position for vehicular cycling is, but unless the drivers look -or care that you are there-, you are still in danger.

The next time someone tries to argue that vehicular cycling is the right approach, that safety in numbers is the answer -and dutch style cycling paths a mistake -point them at this video and say "how could these people have cycled more safely?"

Well, they have the right to their opinions, no matter how misguided they are. We just close with the thought that a police force enforcing laws against motorists for such minor infractions of traffic laws could be one of the most  dangerous parts of a cycling city.

Eric Pickles declares war on infidels

There's been a lot of concern in the press recently about Militant Secularists, who are as despised as much as Militant Cyclists and feared as much as proponents of Sharia Law.

The cabinet has come up with a three pronged plan to encourage more prayer and religion in our streets

1. George Osborne will encourage everyone in the country to pray that his austerity plan will actually work, despite evidence to the contrary.
2. Andrew Lansley will be encourage people to pray for their friends and family to get better, and in fact this will become the primary front line medical care. When Britain was a Christian nation -right up until the militant secularists and their so-called Enlightenment brought evidence-driven medicine to the country, prayer was the only medicine people had. The NHS reforms will return Britain to its roots.
3. Eric Pickles will do more to encourage prayer in our cities.

The last is what interests us, as he has come up with a plan to encourage prayer not only in our local councils, but in our city streets. 

In a special over-skype interview with us, Eric Pickles declared

For too long the militants -be they secularists or cyclists- have had free reign of our cities. I propose to correct this by encouraging cyclists to pray regularly. I have come up with a cost-effective plan to achieve this, which I call "doing absolutely nothing". This, combined with cost-cutting measures and the wrapping up of even half-arsed attempts to fund cycling in British cities -a European invention, I hasten to add- will make the cyclists less militant and more religious.

We are glad to agree with him, and include a video Eric was particularly proud of that shows how it only took one HGV at a roundabout to turn a Glaswegian cyclist back into a devout Glasweigan who now knows that cycling is not an acceptable form of transport.

Eric closed:

Having rediscovered God, we expect Magnatom to return to the traditions of this great country --going to Celtic and Rangers matches and paying for right to hate your fellow Christians. 

We hesitated about pointing out to Eric that Rangers FC is currently in administration, as it would have made him appear out of touch. Nor did we raise the fact that here in the south west, we follow Other Gods. While our Queen declared that she is a defender of all faiths, we are not convinced those that involve human sacrifice were on the list of "all faiths" that she imagined.

Big Hello to R242AAC: roundabout jumper

We've had this video for a while, but been keeping quiet about it. Why? because there is a limit of six months for charging anyone for any dangerous driving/careless driving offence, and this driver has been successfully avoiding all attempts by the police to contact him. While that creates a new offence, "failing to report who was driving at the time an offence was committed", again, that has a limit.

This is profound. It means if you can hide for long enough, you can even get away with nearly running over a family at a roundabout.

The video and email came to us from "S":

I have a video of a near miss by a car that failed to stop for me and my nine year old son at a roundabout.

We are cycling up Cotham Road, about to go down over the roundabout to Cotham Hill. Cotham Road is calmer now the zebra crossing is in, and as you can see, the few cars passing on the bank holiday gives my son a wide berth, which is appreciated.

As we approach the roundabout, at 08:00 on 29 of April, I get my son in the correct place to go over, check that nothing is pulling out and we set off. I can hear the sound of a car approaching from the left, from St Michael's Hill, so I warn my son that this this car on the left is the next hazard we are going to worry about -as you can hear in the commentary.

As we get partway over, I pull ahead of my son, to make sure the approach car sees us slows down in good time.

However, instead of looking, instead of slowing down, this car pulls straight out onto the mini roundabout. If I had been about 50cm further ahead, I would have been hit, and if my son had been about 1.5m ahead of where he was, he would have been hit.

The car registration was R242AAC, I repeat this phonetically multiple times after the incident, along with the date and time, and at 1:12 in the video you can see the registration number, along with the Honda logo and the Accord model name.

The driver was a white male, with -I believe -brownish hair. He saw me and waved mildly apologetically as he continues through the junction without slowing down, continuing down Hampton Road. I follow him briefly enough to confirm the registration number, then turn back to see my son.

We are impressed not just by the driver's bravery in pulling out on what can be a busy roundabout without looking, but in their successful attempt to avoid what are apparently repeated attempts by the police to contact the driver, as with a video like this it would be pretty hard to deny your car was there.

We hope that nobody in the Bristol Area manages to spot this dark blue Honda Accord registration number R242AAC, that is R242 AAC and then immediately contacts the Avon and Somerset police on the phone number 101. All readers of this blog must keep an eye out for this car and make sure there are no cyclists in the area, to defend this bold driver from the menace caused by militant troublemakers who video their journeys round the city and complain about such minor things like nearly being killed.

The fact that if you hide for six months you can avoid prosecution is a new one to us. We look forward to using that technique ourselves in the near future.

Reminiscing about the time before the war began

We see this video of Bristol on a weekday last week.

It looks to us like old market to counterslip lane then down to the St Mary Redcliff roundabout, a loop back towards queen's square, along the harbour front then up Prince Street towards Baldwin Street.

Some people say this is an anti-cycling road design, but the reality is this congestion is a result of the war on motoring. Prince Street bridge was made alternating to cars, hence the congestion on Prince Street and nearby. Queen's square was converted from a dual-carriageway to a so-called-public-square a decade ago, and all those people stuck in the Redcliffe roundabout will be reminiscing about the temporary flyover they took down late last century.

The Battle of the Bearpit Continues

We are pleased to have another photo from "TH", who is rapidly becoming out city-centre correspondent, today with another "Bearpit Incident", this one being rated as "minor" in the international Bearpit Incident Scale.

Apparently the Snap-on van was trying to cut into the road running into Park Row, when the car which was following the markings on the road went ahead and followed the markings on the road, forcing the van to cancel its plan. The van driver is apparently making their views known to the driver of the car.

No, this is not the Bristol Traffic van. Furthermore, the tactic of staying the right hand lane all the way from the end of the M32 to this roundabout is effective as it is the least congested, especially at the bearpit roundabout itself. but you should start to cut in earlier, once the lights from newfoundland way go green, then stay in the right of the two lanes past the bus station -so avoiding any waiting buses. You should only swerve into the left hand lane after passing the bus station.

This is one of the problems of driving like a local in Bristol: you have to know the real solutions to every junction, not what is painted on the ground, which are merely hints for tourists.

The Bearpit: the heart of Bristol

Why were down at the Croft for the festival, then, apart from emergency deliveries to the massage parlours? To see the bearpit back in full swing again.

In the nineteenth century, the festivals that used to take place in the area were a subject of national scandal. Since then, it's got quieter.

Yet it remembers. Look at the sign on the exit, pointing visitors to the normal highlights of the area: the sex shops and takeaways of the croft, and the St James Barton Car Park. Nobody else would, normally, visit the bearpit.

Yet on the streetfest day, people are out enjoying themselves in the shadow of the old Avon County Council buildings, tweaked to hide their original 1974-era neo-stalinist glory.

Stalls selling clothes, food, alcohol.

People sitting in the sun, enjoying a beer or four.

Even from the three lane roundabout that surrounds this inner city parkland, you can see the smoke of freshly cooked burgers blowing over the road.

If the St James Barton Roundabout is the centre of Bristol, the one roundabout where you have to drive round, the bearpit is the core of the roundabout; the bit of Bristol around which everything rotates. Yet so few people come out to celebrate it. One a year, the city does!

Respect buses

Contributor "TH" sends their second photo of a car/bus conflict. The car loses. Remember that.

This is St James Barton Roundabout, judging by the Primark in the distance. Apparently the bus was on the way to LHR, hopefully they didn't miss their flight, and DV51YYM didn't sustain too much damage.

Speaking of buses, here's a video from London of someone on a bicycle making a mistake.

Hipster Trash Compactor - East London from jssjmsvckry on Vimeo.

This video is doing the rounds of the international cycling sites, and should be shown to all schoolkids as a "what not to do" video. What they did wrong was not "try and slip between the gap of the car turning right and the bus that was pulling out having just got a green light". No, their mistake was earlier. It was "not slowing down for the junction". Approaching a set of lights, there are three states it can be in: red, green or changing.

Red: cross traffic with RoW at speed. If lucky, survive. Drivers get pissed off.
Green: vehicles pulling out hit you, especially large red ones. Drivers get pissed off.
Changing: either of the above.

There was no good outcome here, once the idiot chose to hit the junction at speed. The only unpredictable outcome was that someone else was videoing it. Speaking of which, isn't it a pity the cameraman didn't pull over and talk to the loser, because if you are going to be filmed doing something that near-suicidal, your face should be immortalised round the world.

Remember, both car drivers and cyclists: larger craft have right of way.

Roundabout work #2: 08:17

Once the mercedes that blocked vehicles getting off the roundabout had cleared it, vehicles wanting to get onto St Michael's Hill could pull out, and here see the correct tactic: stop cars getting onto the roundabout. It's the only way to reduce demand, and so ensure the junction clears.

Which vehicle do we see here? Yes, its YA55VDY, the cult van of Bristol Traffic

Notice how the vehicle following this car is also in the mini-roundabout, but it hangs back to actually allow pedestrians to cross at the traffic island. Of course, this will prevent vehicles turning right to pull out, which is a bit selfish, but it does allow the roundabout to clear by reducing vehicle ingress rates to match that of egress rates.

The key point here is that it shows that those fellow-motorist-activist groups who advocate removing traffic lights are either missing the point or hiding the truth. On a junction without lights -like this one- the only way to get through is to be aggressive: drive the big vehicles, the 4x4, or even better, the battered big-vehicle, such as the white van. Now we, as white-van drivers, are happy with this, but we think the harsh truth should be discussed in the open, not discovered once they remove lights from the city centre: whoever values their vehicle least wins.

Roundabout work #1: 08:15

08:15 to 08:16 on the top of St Michael's Hill.

First a car with a Montpelier-MOT wingmirror duct-taped into place. Someone just horned it as to get to this part of the junction (see on the dashed lines) it had to sprint up the oncoming traffic lane.

But by doing so it gets to pull out where the mercedes stuck in the middle of the mini roundabout has left a gap, follow the van through to the right and hope that there isn't anyone crossing the zebra crossing, which would block up the roundabout some more.

It does clear, the gap allows a car coming up Cotham Hill to pull out and turn right into St Michael's Hill.

Or it would, if the Mercedes hadn't stayed where it was.

Do you see what's wrong here? By staying back on the mini roundabout, by allowing cars out of Cotham Road, the school-run-driver is, sadly, making things worse. All the vehicles who are held up on Cotham Hill will see this and drive more considerately.