Secret parking by the Arches

"RP" -our Gloucester Road correspondent, shows us some secret parking places:

FV55 PYO has been parking on the footpath round the back of the shops next to the disused toilets under the arches on the Gloucester road on a daily basis for well over a year. To be precise, the practice started at the same time that "Do 'Lil Coffee" opened next just next to the disused toilets next to the arches on the Gloucester Road. Not that anything should be read into this of course.

   


Now this is a great example of resourcefulness. The footpath here is wide and although bollards suggest that cars are not welcome on this pedestrian cut through onto Cromwell road the driver is often able
to leave plenty of room for both the car and those on foot. On other occasions, FV55PYO is joined by a second car (peculiarly this seems to coincide with times when Do 'Lil Coffee is doing a lot of business --
Saturday mornings for example).

Then it becomes a little more awkward for pedestrians who have to decide whether to risk damaging parked cars as they squeeze pushchairs, bikes and shopping past the cars or, probably more easily, abandon the footpath and take to the road instead. Anyway, we digress.


To reward this feat of ingenuity and long-standing service to resourceful parking, Bristol City Council now routinely fix yellow stickers to the windscreen FV55PYO. Here is one example from a little while ago. This recognition of success has obviously not gone unnoticed as are now many other luxury cars who feel they don't want to be missed out.

Problems in the RPZ

Oh dear. More tickets.

Luckily, the entire Bristol Traffic project is based in Clifton, where sights such as this are rare, even on double yellow lines.

We feel sorry for this poor driver, who has accidentally visited Cotham, and become ensnared in its Resident's Parking Zone. Three tickets in as many days.

With the registration EX11WVT, it's quite possible the driver lives in Essex, and may not be aware that it's always better to park in Clifton, rather than Cotham, especially if intending to stay in Bristol for a few days.

You can't ticket me: I have diplomatic immunity

Chris Chalkley, President for Life of the PRSC, almost gets a ticket for being double-yellow line parked on Jamaica Street.

First he tries the "I have diplomatic immunity gambit", which fails. Time for a plan B.

"Ticket that van first", as he points to the other van, while he hurriedly drives off with his to park round the corner.

DVLA Harassment in Monty

A van partially pavement parked, and with a police ticket. Why the ticket?

OK, the road tax expired at the end of June. And what's that in the background?

It's another car, this time fully DVLA clamped up while paveparked on double yellow lines.

But what does it's tax disk say? July 2012

Either they've just (belatedly) stuck in the disk and are hoping to be unlocked, or the DVLA computers are playing up.

Speaking of DVLA computers, someone has put in an e-Petition to make it illegal to park outside someone else's house at night. Having "space" outside your house in the inner city is some unrealistic vision: you park where you can. These people may live in some suburb where Avocados and Coffee Percolators are items of wonder, but the rest of don't run to the window and go "ooh" when a strange vehicle drives down our road, or start fuming when they are still parked outside at 10pm, forcing us to park five metres further away than normal.

Then there's enforcement. Will the police, randomly pick on cars, go up to the house it is in front of and verify that it is theirs? What if they dont' answer because they are asleep?No, enforcement would have to involve the DVLA scanner vans driving round all night.

But we're going to ignore that and worry about the implementation details. You can't use the DVLA address data as it doesn't handle company cars, second homes or students living away from home. That means a new table in the database for every car to have multiple addresses; a mapping of registration -> (postcode, house)+. Except that's a table that needs to be updated a lot more than once a year. What if you go on holiday? You'll need to update it. What if you go to a friends for a weekend? You'll need to update it. Which means a government web site to let you update the legal car parking spaces even from a phone. Which you can defeat with a satnav smart phone that gives you the location of where you are parked and automatically registers you.

No, unworkable.

Red Bull: on the motorists side

In the F1 races, Red Bull are fielding a team. In Bristol a while back, they also had a vehicle on show in Clifton

Yes, it was just an electric thing, but it was on our side

Proof: THB61S is on double yellow lines, has a tax disk and two parking tickets!

[photo by Martin of Bristol Culture] 

Clifton Downer

Those Bristol roving traffic wardens really are a nuisance. They've taken to visiting places without any yellow lines. Luckily for WV56HSF they haven't yet been to Pembroke Vale, but we're sure it's only a matter of time before they do.

We think it's fine when they pick on the Redland Mums, after all if you live outside the catchment area of a school, but manage to get your child into it, you can't be expected to fully understand the etiquette attached to driving and parking in the 'hood.

But over here in Clifton, we pay proper road tax, and like to send our kids to public schools. We all have cars, and nobody important walks in our streets. Yes, poor people, the blind and the elderly may have to use pavements and take trains, but we're far too wealthy to worry about them. Which is why we're miffed that P32OSX and AK55BFY have been ticketed for obstructing dropped kerbs.

It appears that Bristol City Council (who seem to think they own the pavements) want to persecute us for simply parking where it's most convenient.

Of course, parking fines are nothing to the good residents of Clifton. So we'll just carry on.

Bad timing

The van BK58CNV chose a bad day to park on the double yellow lines on the ASL on Bath Buildings, hence the ticket on the windscreen.

The road was closed while a 30T load got delivered by HGV, and PCSOs were manning the junctions to make sure nobody tried to turn into the road. With the police by the van for a number of hours, eventually one of them was bound to notice it and ticket it.

Unlucky!

Double Jeopardy 2

Back in June we covered the unfair persecution of a motorist, purely because they had the temerity to park across a dropped kerb.

It seems this sort of behaviour by uncaring, irresponsible council officials is still going on. Poor old YL04ZWW has been targeted in the same way, with a ticket on two successive days.

Our roving reporter did re-visit the site on the third day, but sadly the Mini had gone. We suspect the evil council took it to the car-pound to be crushed, but it could be (this is Redland after all) that some kindly neighbour contacted the owner, who then flew back from Barbados, and parked somewhere else.

We just hope it wasn't here, where unlucky R125SLB, has also been persecuted for nothing more than inconveniencing a few children on their way home from Redland Green school.