Regarding a Grey Van on Romney Ave/Shaldon Road, Lockleaze

Some tax-dodger emails us:

"were you the idiot driver of the grey van who on Wed Feb 1 was swearing at me down at Muller Road because all the way down Romney Ave he hadn't been able to pass me, because I didn't get out of the way of traffic?"

"If you were, can I point out that I was doing 30 mph, so you had no justification to pass me, and as I was following a car doing the same speed about three bike lengths in front, you had nowhere to go anyway."

"I hope you enjoyed the long traffic jam on Muller Road with no bicycle in your way to get upset about"

We have looked at our van and no, it doesn't look grey, more a white with a brown layer on top, "dirty!" written on the back. (that's our brand, incidentally).

We understand the grey van driver. We don't think bicycles should be on the road, so the fact that you were there -and the fact that he couldn't get past- made it very frustrating. If you had cycled slower and stayed to one side he would still have hated you, but a bit less.

That's something the advocates of "vehicular cycling" don't understand. They think if you imagine that you are a car, and position yourself appropriately, you will recognised as a vehicle and made welcome. Not so: you will just become an arrogant cyclist who doesn't know their place -and deserves the abuse they get.

It is your very presence that is the issue, not just your positioning.

Unfit and bad judgement

We're always being accused of somehow presenting the cyclist point of view, rather than discuss the problems that RLJ-ing cyclists present. Good point. Lets run some of those videos. Before that, let's pre-empt the "when cyclists RLJ they don't endanger anyone" claim. Not so. When they run zebra crossings or pedestrian crossings they do endanger pedestrians. If they force pedestrians to hold back they may keep the pedestrians from crossing the road until the cars get a green light, so exposing them to more risk. And they completely destroy any moral high ground the tax dodgers claim to inhabit.

For the next few postings then, some RLJ-by-bike work. More than that though: some theories as to why. It can't be because they are important and in a hurry: as if they were they would be driving. There must be other reasons.



Let's start with this video at the Muller Road/Shaldon Road junction.

0:00 Filming begins on Station Lane, there are two tax dodgers here, cyclist #1 is female and in front of the filming one.
0:08 The woman on the bicycle (henceforth "cyclist #1") crosses Muller Road while the right hand approach lanes have green for both turning and going straight on. This is the 3rd or 4th set of red lights since the M32, and cars are still in speed mode and not used to red themselves. Yet she sets off, wobbling a bit, as she tries to get up the hill.

0:09-0:21 she's now got a line of cars going up the hill beside her, as she approaches a parked car she's going to have to pull out on.

0:22: now as she reaches the pullout point there's a supermarket delivery van to deal with.


0:28 Shaldon road gets its green for traffic going straight on or right (left turn has been green since 0:06)

0:40 Station Lane gets green, the other cyclist (henceforth "tax dodger #2") sets off

1:03 the woman who sets off at 0:08 gets passed by tax dodger #2.

Let's look at cyclist's #1's actions then. She set off through a red light, exposing her to risk to crossing traffic, reinforcing (clearly valid) perceptions about RLJing cyclists, and then making it harder to get up the hill because of the passing cars then the van making the pull-out that much harder.

And for what? Because tax dodger #2 reeled her in about 20 seconds. At that rate, if she was going up the hill towards UWE, what would be for tax dodger #2 a 15 minute hill climb will, for cyclist #1, be something more like a 45 minute crawl. At which rate the saving of 40s is absolutely negligible. Maybe running a red would make sense if it would save you time, but in this case it offered increase risk for no real benefit.

Why do it then? Why not just wait for green and pedal a bit harder when it arrives?

Careful Passing

Everyone recommends giving bicycles room when passing, -and they complain when you don't, especially when traffic islands create pinch points.

Here a vehicle on Shaldon Road, Lockleaze, demonstrates the correct way to safely pass a slow-moving bicycle at a pinch point.

WessexConnect: they block ASLs for your own good

There's a lot of complaint from the bicycle-troublemakers, the vocal ones, about vehicles stopping in ASLs. We think that it's exaggerated. Here is our proof.

[update]: It's apparently a Wessex Connect Bus. We praise them for their consideration.

It's a video from (an expendable) cyclist. As we've stated before, we don't video our own driving in case it is used in evidence against us. Even the soundtrack of us trying to touch-type facebook updates on the phone could cause legal issues. Hence we give these tax dodgers cameras "as gifts" and collect the output. Today we see the output from a shinier camera, which is helmet mounted for a bit more stability.

This video was shot going down Shaldon Road, meeting the lights at Muller road. As you can see the bus has its wheels behind the ASL, but the front of the vehicle is in the ASL. This is for everyone's own good -nobody should go into this ASL.

0:13. The bus gets a green light to turn left, taking up most of the lane as it swings round. A cyclist may have survived if far enough to the right, but the turning car would have dealt with that.

0:22 The cyclist gets a green light and starts to head through while a car coming from the M32 runs the recently-red at speed.

If the cyclist had been using the ASL for its planned purpose "getting out early", they'd have been hit by that car. The FirstBus WessexConnect vehicle's positioning not only protected the cyclists from it's own left turn, it saved ithem from other road vehicles.

We think this is one of the cycle facilities which even the militant cyclists would be campaigning to remove.

Speaking of cycling facilities, we are disappointed to note that Lord Mayor Geoff Gollop will be in Stockwell to proudly open the new "pump track" put in for the local teenagers to cycle round. Why the disappointment? Well, that's only going to encourage them, isn't it?

We feel betrayed. Why? Cllr Gollop was the leading quote for the Bristol Bikelash. How can he rightfully take our side by denouncing the painting over of some parking spaces with bike lanes, then turn around and say "it's OK for people to cycle here". It's just hypocrisy. We know he's going to drive there, obviously, but will he stand up and say the truth -that he and his party are the only people prepared to stand up against cycling and public transport in this city, because they are the only form of transport for poor people, and we are not poor. Well, not poor yet, though his colleagues in Westminster have plans for that. But don't worry: the unemployed don't commute.

Discussions with the BSM and other Bristol Driving Schools

We always have a special place in our coverage for driving schools, as they have to teach beginners the hard art of driving and parking in a city which, excluding Clifton, is anti-car.

Here, up in Filton. Evolution WM10YHO show that the way to park is up on the pavement.

In front of it, a shared space. This eliminates the pavement entirely, and makes for some fun high-speed chicanes.

Speaking of driving schools, our ongoing discussion with one has had a new comment. The instructor does provide some good insight into what it's like driving a bus in the city, so those commenters slagging off FirstBus drivers should really save their anger for FirstBus management.

He also raises the issue of which laws should be ignored first:

I completely agree with people should not park on double yellow lines or zig zags or to close to junction corners all of which cause a danger to other road users but I do not count parking 2 wheels on the pavement in a very narror street that was never meant for parked cars in the first place as the same level of offence.

We don't bother with making decisions about which action is more defensible than others. We ignore them all, hence save time thinking about which action is more right than others.

We also note that we haven't seen that particular driving school in our database. The driving school that most pops is the British School of Motoring. The BSM may have more market share, but they are to be commended for something else: they are the only driving school that we have documented teaching people how to park in Montpelier. The other schools, they pick you up, then take you somewhere safe to learn to drive. The BSM actually hold their lessons in Montpelier.

In-town, in Richmond Road, Montpelier, we have a heartwarming sight. No, not the cyclist going up the hill with the Sainsbury's bag on the handlebars -it's the BSM instruction car WV60WJF.

We don't think driving and parking in Monty has its own test yet, so we're assuming it's a lesson. As Richmond Road is one of the hardest to drive and park on, we congratulate the BSM for showing their pupils the way forward -or at least the way up on the pavement without damaging your wheels, hitting the wall or paying the wingmirror tax on the way up the road.

So far, nobody from the BSM has got in touch with us. However, we are pleased to have video coverage of a discussion between some under-employed tax-dodger and the BSM car WR60CUY, which can be seen driving into the ASL on the red light: the bicycle doesn't get their green light until Shaldon Road is on red, so the car has had five seconds of red before it comes to a halt.

When queried about what the driver thinks the penalty for driving into an ASL is, the driving instructor comes back with the correct answer: anyone who cares about such things doesn't have a life. We actually think this summarises the entire country's cycling activist groups: they only do it because they don't have real lives.

Congratulations to the BSM for putting this tax dodger in their place!

Left Hook at Kellaway Building Supplies

A tax-dodging troublemaker emails us this video to say "Is this white van DK04TBX that nearly ran me over on June 10 in its rush to get to Kellaway Building Supplies on Shaldon Road yours?"

Here is the response composed by our lawyers

• Askmid says this vehicle is a VW Transport T30TDi. As the Bristol Traffic Team's white van is a Ford Transit at least ten years older, we deny responsibility.
• We think all criticism of this van is unfounded, as by accelerating past the bicycle before cutting over it, it left plenty of room.
• By indicating its intent to turn left while it went past the bicycle, the cyclist had plenty of time to take evasive action.
• Kellaway Building supplies plays a key role in supplying everything a white van in the building trade needs apart from copies of the Sun and cans of Red Bull. As the Bristol Traffic van is a key part of the Bristol sex industry supply chain, Kellaway Building Supplies rarely appears in our list of destinations, apart from when meeting the needs of an individual with an obsession about loft insulation. A superinjunction prevents us identifying the specific board members of one of our local football teams.

We trust that these answers are satisfactory.

Does extra parking calm traffic? Yes

We're going to be looking at the Clifton "calming traffic through more parking" plans, to show that this isn't really a self-centred proposal by the Clifton Parking Faction (our comrades, the Keep Parking Free team), but instead a dedicated attempt to reduce risk in a busy city.

Here is the Shaldon Road/Muller Road Junction. Our secretly camera-instrumented traffic dodger is not waiting the ASL we paid our tax money for, apparently because "you get run over by buses turning left on the left turn light, or buses turning right"

• At 0:04 a car parked with its hazard lights on, some L-plate vehicle, we believe.
• At 0:08 the tax-dodger pulls up to go straight on, even though there are no markings on the road to indicate that this is permitted.
• At 1:23 in this dull video (and people wonder why we text in our cars at junctions. This is why), a bus turns right.
• At 1:27, behind the camera, the bus comes to a halt, as it cannot get past the parked car, not with the queue of cars waiting to turn right.
• At 1:31 someone sounds their horn. We are not sure who. Either its the silver car behind the bus, or a car behind the bicycle complaining that they are in the way.
• At 1:40 there are now five cars behind the bus, the traffic speed has been reduced to 0 km/h. No pedestrians will get hit by cars now.
• At 1:46 the green light reaches Shaldon Road, the tax-dodger pedals forward through a junction that is now blocked by stationary cars. Any cars behind them will not be moving, hence their speed is also 0 km/h: again, safety at work.
• At 1:50 the known subversive weaves their way through the now traffic-calmed junction, so ensuring that if there were any pedestrians in Station Lane, they would not get run over by a speeding cyclist.

There we have it then. A single L-plated car can traffic calm a busy junction, reducing vehicle speeds by 15 km/h, that is, from 15 km/h to 0 km/h.

This shows how the addition of extra parking spaces can calm hazardous junctions, and is not merely an attempt by a group of self-centred Clifton residents to add extra parking for their extra vehicles. Although that is, of course, a side-benefit, one that other traffic calming ideas: bike parking, trees and build-outs don't over, which is why it is the only form of traffic calming that we, the Bristol Traffic team approve of.
Update: added the video