Aberdeen Taxis - providing vital public transport.

A confused and confusing e-mail arrives:



From: kjetil xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Bad parking on Cornhill Drive
Date: 2 May 2012 9:35:38 pm GMT+01:00
To: "aberdeencars@gmail.com"
Reply-To: kjetil xxxxxxxxxx

I dont know how to get a picture on your website and found it confusing, i saw this taxi parked on the pavement yet lady driving it said there was nothing wrong with her parking, its now been reported to taxi bosses and they said its not acceptable, children use this pavement yet idiots like that shouldnt have a licence, would you get in her car, her number plate SE08 PYO, Private Plate No.2.

Kjetil

Well, Kjetil (if that's your real name!). What you've failed to understand there is the fact that taxis in Aberdeen own the road. And the pavements too!

Pothole Revenge!

It's that time again. Yes, it's that time of year when winter frosts turn the roads of Aberdeen "City and Shire" into a network of car-breaking pot-holes. Oh yes, be in no doubt that the family motorist in the north-east is picking up the cost for the dreadful condition of our roads as we try to go about our lawful business on Her Majesty's pock-marked and cratered highways - as we wealth-creators dodge massive craters on our way to the provide the necessary economic growth in Aberdeen to bale out UK plc from its current economic difficulties! (Aberdeen being not only the powerhouse of Scotland but the economic power station of Europe - if not the world - as pointed out by expert urban planner Mr Thompson on his famous Aucherness blog about planning issues in Scotland.)

So we're angry, yes - ANGRY! Angry at the state of our roads and the current epidemic of potholes which has turned our road network into something like out of a third world country like Africa. The one thing that gives us succour as we drive around the roads in Aberdeen "City and Shire" is the fact that the drivers of Aberdeen Cars have a keen sense of justice. Not only that, but the family motorist also has the means of implementing that justice to hand - yes, that most Aberdonian of utilitarian pastimes - the gentle art of PaveParking!

For - as we drive around the place creating economic vibrancy, business sustainability, a real buzz, and the iconic feeling that Aberdeen really, really is a world city that knows where it's going - we are often troubled by the sight of pestestrians wandering untidily about the place, looking untidy and poor, and - more to the point - avoiding paying road tax and petrol duty. The tax-avoiding shirkers! Disgusting! This will not stand. Therefore, so that these pestestrians (who like to interrupt our more important, vibrant, economically beneficial journeys with their "Green Man" and "Zebra" crossings) get a taste of what it's like to be a family motorist, we dispense justice via the effect that our PaveParking activities have on their precious footpaths. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, and we like to share, and so we share our pothole misery with the pestestrians. Equality - see? No-one can say that the drivers of Aberdeen Cars are not altruistically humanist egalitarians in spirit!

Here are some lovely exemplars of the humanist PaveParking handiwork of the drivers of Aberdeen Cars:

At present, there's a move afoot from some walking pressure group (no, really) calling themselves "Living Streets". They have launched a campaign called "Protect a pavement" which they hope will stop us from parking on footpaths. Let them try!

Looking at the Collins English Dictionary, it seems that a "footpath" is "a path along which the public has right of way". Yes. But where does it say that we cannot use our cars, vans and trucks to exercise that right? Nowhere. QED.

Separation Principles?

As part of our distasteful work researching what's important to cyclists (I know, but somebody's got to do it), we came across this diagram from some Danish manual on cycle infrastructure:

Now, you can see the trap they've fallen into there. They've actually regarded cycling as something to promote, something to facilitate. And so they've ended up with stuff like this nonsense on Copenhagen Cycle Chic.

If only they'd adopted the UK model, then they could have the proper sort of car-priority infrastucture we enjoyed by the Drivers of Aberdeen Cars.

Sinister Forces of Re-allocation. Guild St

Can you see what's wrong with this picture? Yes, that's right - it's the most insidious threat to the drivers of Aberdeen Cars - the Sinister Forces of roadspace re-allocation have been at work.


At first, you might not notice what's happened. But then you'll see the oddly-curtailed road-markings, the strange mid-pavement placing of a lamp-post. A mid-pavement gutter. And then you realise - the pavement has been built-out onto the motorists road-space! What?! We can see no good reason at all for this unilateral annexation of the roadtaxpayer funded carriageway space in favour of the tax-dodging pestestrians.

The location is Aberdeen's Guild Street and this road forms part of the vital giratory system at the heart of the city's inner-city ring-road. Where once the giratory was three-lanes wide, now it is pinched to just two at this spot outside the Station Hotel. That's a 33% re-allocation in favour of the scroungers.

From this giratory, important executives in their nice Aberdeen Cars are distributed west to the ever-popular upmarket villas of Ferryhill, south to the oil-industrial estates of Tullos and Altens and north on the Denburn Dual Carrageway to the rest of the city. This makes it all the more perplexing and worrying to us that the anti-car, anti-economy, Sinister Forces of roadspace reallocation have chosen this spot to go about their foul business increasing the size of the pavements. We understand that this extended footspace (is that what it's called?) is intended to 'accommodate' increased pestestrian flow between the Trinity Centre shopping mall and the Union Square shopping mall. But that can't be right; both these malls have large car-parks, so what sort of person would want to walk between the two and get all windswept?

A closer look at the photo above perhaps gives us some clues. Not one of these people is wearing a suit. None of them carries a briefcase. What with all those casually-dressed people walking around Aberdeen these days rather than use the lovely big road, the place is looking a bit like DSS-land or StudentVille or something. This sends out all the wrong messages.We can only thank Ford that they are constrained behind those aluminium railings, lest they just come out of nowhere and endanger our no claims bonuses!

But, on a very serious note, this roadspace reallocation work sets a dangerous precedent. We are aware that the Sinister Forces of re-allocation are girding their loins and have the Denburn Dual Carriageway in their sights. That's why it's vital that all Aberdeen Drivers of good faith join our our popular campaign to to "Save the Denburn Dual Carriageway!" ('like' us on FaceBook, 'follow' us on Twitter)

Our numbers are swelling. Our collective voice will be heard!

More Obstacles

Regular readers will know that we've covered the parking options outside the Co-op on Holburn Street once or twice before. Or maybe even three times.


Anyhow, over the last few weeks, in competition to the Co-op, a new 'not normally manned' Tesco Metro outlet has opened on the neighbouring site once occupied by legendary hardware store The Colour Box. A concerned citizen contributer got in touch and asked us to explain the function of the bollards which have since appeared on the pavement outside the new Tesco.

It's obvious to us that the bollards are a disgusting anti-motorist measure placed there as a sop to the filthy hippy vegitarians which the Tesco hopes to attract away from the pinko communist hive of the Co-op next door. These dangerous bollards intimidate the blameless and beleaguered hard-pressed tax-farmed motorist by threatening (as we've covered very recently) to scratch his lovely car should he attempt a PaveParking maneuver, which is, of course, the right of the motorist, particularly in Aberdeen where we are in the vanguard of providing the necessary economic growth which will pull the whole of the UK out of the doldrums.

At least we see the other legitimate use for pavements (other than PaveParking) being well demonstrated in the photo. Yes. Pavements are for bins. Fact.

A Very Dangerous Situation.

We really were horrified to see this. This really is a disgrace, something must be done. We were so worried by this sight on Aberdeen's Victoria Street that we felt we had to document it.



Yes, that little old lady is dangerously close to touching that beautifully customised Mitsubishi Warrior pickup reg DG10FFZ. This risks scratching or otherwise damaging it, thus rendering it less nice.

The driver of this Aberdeen Car is clearly already hard-pressed; the costs of maintaining such a vehicle are considerable and the price of fuel has reached record highs recently. Something's got to give, and long-suffering motorists all over the country are forced to make tough choices. In this case, our research shows that the legendary tight-fistedness thrift which is famously part of the local character has manifested itself in the driver of this vehicle deciding that it's most probably OK to do without motor insurance. And so this vehicle is not insured (not appearing on the Motor Insurance Database when we checked). Such sacrifices are tough but necessary in these austerity times, and we admire the driver of this Aberdeen Car for his or her thrift and selflessness. Well done!

But we must ask, is it fair that - as well as everything else - this already put-upon driver of an Aberdeen Car should have to worry about rogue old-folks touching their car? Several questions present themselves:

1. Should the elderly (who are often unsteady on their feet) be allowed out in the west end of Aberdeen where they might easily damage innocent uninsured cars?
2. Should the pavement be completely removed from Victoria Street? After all, it only encourages them!