Parking??

[bristoltraffic]

Yes, me too. The bit on the 4x4s and their antics was the funniest thing I've seen in a while.

You are sneering at people, who, possibly through no fault of their own, are forced to drive into the city in a 4x4. These are harder to park than most cars, forcing them to find more imaginative solutions to the parking problem. You who cycle to work are merely doing it because you can't handle reverse parking a range rover onto a traffic island, or possibly even lack the imagination to find such places in the city to park your vehicle.

Interestingly, our smartcar coverage shows that owners of those vehicles often have to come up with equally imaginative parking solutions. This shows that it is not a function of vehicle dimensions, but instead is driven by the ratio of available parking space to vehicle length. SmartCars may fit in places no other car can, but as you can get a ford fiesta into the space that a parallel parked smartcar takes up -if you try hard enough- smartcar drivers have to push the envelope in parking options in order to feel that they have got value for money in buying a vehicle that has less luggage room than a ortlieb pannier and is no good on long-haul journeys. It is for urban use only, so it has to be used. It is the fixed-wheel equivalent of the motor car. http://bristolcars.blogspot.com/search/label/smartcar

As regards Jeremy Clarkson being made up - well yes in a sense he is. He's on record as saying he's paid to repeat the same tired old line time and time again - if he suddenly said he was concerned for the environment nobody would believe him. Hence he's trapped into just churning out the same themes even though he himself may have long since stopped believing them.

That's interesting, but fundamentally irrelevant. If the audience of TopGear believe that they mean what they say, that's all that counts. Same for the Daily Mail.

Returning to the Bristol Traffic site, we are not satire, we are documentary. But what kind of documentary? If you look at how we tag our posts, we put down street, vehicle type, what's going on, which school is nearby, etc. This makes it more than a blog: it is a photographic database of the city where we can retrieve this data later, bring up a list of school-related issues, search for the same vehicle registration number, etc

http://bristolcars.blogspot.com/search/label/datamining
http://bristolcars.blogspot.com/search/ ... ntre-state

This is not some secret plan, we spell it out quite clearly, repeatedly, but again, some people confuse our declarations for some kind of joke. Those people don't work in datacentre infrastructure, don't know what a petabyte is, let alone how to run a MapReduce job over that much data, and aren't up to date with modern grouping and graph-inference algorithms. That's ok. You don't need to know those details, just know that google do store our photos in their multi-petabyte GFS filesystem and do all the indexing and retrieval for us. But index it they do.

[Si]

Interestingly, our smartcar coverage shows that owners of those vehicles often have to come up with equally imaginative parking solutions.

Careful now: I once made an observation on how a local Smartcar aids road safety by dint of the way that the driver parked end on, thus leaving the end of the car sticking out and creating an instant pinch point that served to "calm" the flow of traffic on this blind bend. An upset SM owner linked it to a Smartcar forum and far from thanking me for my kind words they because very annoyed for some reason.

[Mick F]

Will someone correct me if I'm wrong, but AFAIK, a car has to be parked parallel to the kerb, not end-on, to be parked legally. If there are marked lines - herringbone for instance - they have to be parked in the lines, but without particular demarcations, they must be parked side-on, close to, and parallel to the kerb.

This is especially important at night, of course.

Consequently, Smart Cars parked end-on are illegally parked.

[PW]

I cheated at a set of roadworks the other day - it was easier & quicker to get off and push along the pavement, letting the cars overtake, then get on at the other end when the road was blocked to overtaking vehicles. A former workmate in a passing Smart shouted at me to get pedalling, he didn't like being asked if he had a few sparklers to hold out of the sunroof, "then you'll look even more like a dodgem driver!"

[jan19]

You are sneering at people, who, possibly through no fault of their own, are forced to drive into the city in a 4x4. These are harder to park than most cars, forcing them to find more imaginative solutions to the parking problem. You who cycle to work are merely doing it because you can't handle reverse parking a range rover onto a traffic island, or possibly even lack the imagination to find such places in the city to park your vehicle

Not sneering, just enjoying some of the "imaginative solutions to parking" as you call them. Unfortunately some of them appear to hold up the smooth flow of traffic (the Volvo XC90 driver being a prime example) which is why I imagine you made a particular feature of them. I should be grateful I suppose that I know exactly how big my car is and so therefore rarely have problems parking it even though I also work in a city. One slightly bigger than Bristol. An inability to drive/park my car certainly isn't why I cycle so I'm afraid you're a bit wide of the mark with that assumption.

But do continue with your documentary - it is most entertaining.

Jan

[MikeL]

... buying a vehicle that has less luggage room than a ortlieb pannier...

Gotcha

No MailMonkey motorist bigot could possibly stoop to knowing what an ortlieb pannier is.

Edit: checked out the website. Priceless! Great to end the day wearing a broad grin.

[Mick F]

... buying a vehicle that has less luggage room than a ortlieb pannier...

Gotcha

No MailMonkey motorist bigot could possibly stoop to knowing what an ortlieb pannier is.

Yes, I spotted it too.

[Mick F]

Will someone correct me if I'm wrong, but AFAIK, a car has to be parked parallel to the kerb, not end-on, to be parked legally. If there are marked lines - herringbone for instance - they have to be parked in the lines, but without particular demarcations, they must be parked side-on, close to, and parallel to the kerb.

This is especially important at night, of course.

Consequently, Smart Cars parked end-on are illegally parked.

I see no-one has replied to my point yet.

This is because of two possible reasons:
1. I'm right.
2. People just missed it.

[mark_w]

I have a quick story about bad parking.

Was sat in the car (about to get out), in the car park at Clifton Moor in York, outside Toys R Us. Car park was probably 90% empty.

A subaru impreza turns up, looking 'barried' to the max. You know the type - covered in Barry bolt-ons (red mudflaps, M3 mirrors and so-on).

Lady who is driving it looks at the parking spaces (there were many) and decides that instead of parking properly, she just drove it diagonally across two spaces because it was easiest, gets out, locks car and walks off. Cue open mouths from all people nearby who just couldn't believe what they just saw - me included.

Now I had a think about this and I reckon she did it so that she doesn't get her (or her partner's) pride and joy scratched by cars parking either side of her. But still beggars belief.

(For my sins, I own a large Nissan 4x4, and for the record, it's much easier to park than a smaller car cos you can see better due to increased visibility and a reversing camera).

[rbrian]

Now I had a think about this and I reckon she did it so that she doesn't get her (or her partner's) pride and joy scratched by cars parking either side of her. But still beggars belief.

Many years ago, in the busiest carpark I'd ever seen, with no spaces at all, I parked an old Fiesta (when they were still small cars) in the half space left by the brand new BMW which had parked across two spaces for this reason. Since there was no room for me to get out, I climbed out the window, and I'm afraid I accidentally scratched my key all the way down the side.

[robwa10]

Bristol Parking I applaude your concerted efforts and campaigning. Last night I went out and cut my bike and all it's parts into small pieces which I then melted down and used to form a ramming device that I fitted to my car. It's placed at an ideal height for cyclist, pedestians, horse riders and even buses! I am fully behind your campaign to rid the nations roads of people like me!!!

N.B. I am not, of course, being sarcastic in anyway.

[bristoltraffic]

Claims that some of our contributors must be cyclists by knowing what an ortlieb pannier is are untrue. We are merely trying to talk "your language" as, that way you will understand our arguments better.

[grw]

Many years ago, in the busiest carpark I'd ever seen, with no spaces at all, I parked an old Fiesta (when they were still small cars) in the half space left by the brand new BMW which had parked across two spaces for this reason. Since there was no room for me to get out, I climbed out the window, and I'm afraid I accidentally scratched my key all the way down the side.

Unless you were there when the car was parked, how do you know the BMW car hadn't parked (what appeared to you to be) poorly as a result of another's poor parking? I've parked over lines as a result of other poor parking, which in itself may have been due to other poor parking, and so on and so on.
grw

[rbrian]

That's a fair point, but since this was the only car which was more than two inches over a line - it was in fact slap bang in the middle of two spaces - and furthermore a brand new M3, I think there's a more than even chance they were doing it to avoid scratches to their very expensive toy, and sod everyone else - if they can't afford a car like that, they're clearly not important.

I however, was clearly important enough to deserve a parking place, even if it was already mostly taken. Ah, the arrogance of youth.

[bristoltraffic]

Bristol Parking I applaude your concerted efforts and campaigning. Last night I went out and cut my bike and all it's parts into small pieces which I then melted down and used to form a ramming device that I fitted to my car. It's placed at an ideal height for cyclist, pedestians, horse riders and even buses! I am fully behind your campaign to rid the nations roads of people like me!!!

Thank you! Welcome to the team!

We are not convinced that actual acts of violence against pedestrians and cyclists are necessary -other than your daily commute by car. Even though they are not showing their wealth by driving expensive cars, some of these people may be of net benefit to the state, either because they pay large amounts of tax, or because their future tax earning potential gives them value. Students, for example. We think you should focus on the elderly and infirm, whose cost to the NHS if they do not get run over may outweigh the benefits. Also, collisions do not just damage the car, they hold up your commute. Nobody likes that.

If you look at our coverage of actual crashes we are unusual in that we not only show sympathy towards car drivers and motorcyclists, we try and not be critical of any cyclist and pedestrians involved: http://bristolcars.blogspot.com/search/label/RTC . This does distinguish us from the rest of the motoring media, but, well, so be it.