Enforcement of commercial vehicles ban in Holyrood Park

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Enforcement of commercial vehicles ban in Holyrood Park

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Started 9 years ago by crowriver
Latest reply from fimm

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crowriver
Member

I'm getting heartily sick of suffering close passes from builder's flat bed trucks, joiner's vans, minibuses and the like on Queen's Drive in Holyrood Park (going downhill/north-east). I've taken to shouting after them "You're not supposed to be in the park!" but this is of course utterly ineffective (though it makes me feel better).

I'm aware there is technically a ban on commercial vehicles entering the park, but very little enforcement appears to occur. That's despite two Park ranger vehicles parked up at the education centre this afternoon when I passed after being buzzed by commercial vehicles.

Any idea who I can complain to or petition to get the ban enforced?

Posted 9 years ago #
I were right about that saddle
Member

Ah well now. I've had recent cause to look into the law about Holyrood Park. The mechanism is that you have to tell the police, who do the actual enforcing on behalf of Her Britannic Majesty, whose garden this is.

The maximum penalty for any park offence is £20, and the police generally have more important things to do. I'd guess that the procurator may also not be too fussed about chasing up white van (wo)men. Unless you actually demolish Crow Hill or build a house on Haggis Knowe I don't think there's much chance of enforcement.

Luckily we voted No and still have the right to petition Brenda directly;

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/264800/petitionstothequeen.pdf

Posted 9 years ago #
fimm
Member

Why do people refer to the Queen as "Brenda"? (I assume there's some reference I'm missing...)

Posted 9 years ago #
Mandopicker101
Member

I believe Private Eye coined the name...or at least they continue to refer to HM as such.

Posted 9 years ago #
crowriver
Member

IWRATS, seems PC Copper couldn't give a monkey's:

"Holyrood Park ban on big vehicles ‘is ignored’ "

http://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/holyrood-park-ban-on-big-vehicles-is-ignored-1-2361392

And yet, just one year earlier:

"White van men targeted in park clampdown"

http://news.stv.tv/east-central/225027-white-van-men-targeted-in-park-clampdown/

Remind me, when was Lothian & Borders Polis merged into Polis Scotchland?

Posted 9 years ago #
slowcoach
Member

Traffic Commissioners can also take enforcement action against goods vehicle or public service vehicle operators. This might include some of the vehicles you mention.

IWRATS - are you sure about the level of penalty? I saw reference to a £30 non-endorsable fixed penalty to be used in 2011, and the rate for those went up to £50 last year.

Also traffic police can find that drivers breaking one law aren't otherwise law-abiding, and may be worth investigating for other offences.

Posted 9 years ago #
I were right about that saddle
Member

@slowcoach

Perhaps they haven't yet reprinted the posters at the park entrances?

Posted 9 years ago #
crowriver
Member

"Traffic Commissioners can also take enforcement action against goods vehicle or public service vehicle operators. "

Hmm. Where do I find these persons of which you speak?

Posted 9 years ago #
crowriver
Member

Okay, I found the office of the Traffic Commissioner for Scotland. Waterloo Place, apparently:

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/traffic-commissioners/about/access-and-opening

However, it says they regulate HGVs and PSVs only. Are "light commercial vehicles" HGVs? I doubt it, otherwise one would need an HGV licence to drive one, no?

Posted 9 years ago #
slowcoach
Member

confusing isn't it? did you see https://www.gov.uk/being-a-goods-vehicle-operator/overview ?
operator's licence needed to operate goods vehicle over 3.5t

Posted 9 years ago #
dessert rat
Member

if anyone wants to also badger Martin, it can only help / can't do any harm to try.

they seem to do a lot of counting, but little else.

********************************
Dear Mr IainMcR,

Thank you for your further email of 10th December 2018 with regards to your continued concern and observations over enforcement for commercial vehicles using and vehicle speed in Holyrood Park.

My apologies for the delay in my response.

I can confirm that over the last few months Police Scotland, who have responsibility for enforcement of the Park Regulations, have carried out a number of commercial vehicle checks within the Park where their resources permit.

The Ranger Team, as part of their wider duties, have carried out 12 ad-hoc 1 hour commercial vehicle monitoring sessions over a similar period resulting in 149 vehicles being recorded. Further sessions and follow up action are planned in the coming months.

As I wrote in my letter of 2nd March 2018 traffic control measures - like average speed cameras and road engineering - are considered in discussions with our partner organisations including Police Scotland and the City of Edinburgh Council. While these measures may well be effective we continue to explore these options and the accompanying complexities of resourcing, securing relevant permissions, installation, management and enforcement.

HES is committed to working with our partner organisations to reduce the number of commercial vehicles that use Holyrood Park roads and manage the speed of traffic through a variety of means.

Your sincerely,
Martin Gray
Martin Gray | Ranger & Visitor Services Manager | Ranger Service
Historic Environment Scotland | Àrainneachd Eachdraidheil Alba
Holyrood Park Education Centre, 1 Queens Drive, Edinburgh, EH8 8HG

martin (dot) gray @ hes.scot
Rangers @ hes.scot
********************************

if that there London can manage to make Congestion Charging work with 100's of ingress/egress points into the Zone, then with a massive 3 entries/exits in Holyrood, it can't be too hard to get average speed cameras with added APR for the commercial vehicles.

Posted 5 years ago #
toomanybikes
Member

There really ought to be an all out vehicle ban through the park not just commercial ones. I don't run through there at rush hour because of the pollution, which is a ridiculous state of affairs for a PARK.

Posted 5 years ago #
crowriver
Member

Yeah just walked through the park half an hour ago. Very pleasant except for the ring road running through the middle of it.

I do have sympathy for the Rangers though, they have plenty on their plate as it is.

Posted 5 years ago #
toomanybikes
Member

The rangers could cut down on their work load by not having to close and reopen gates by just leaving them closed.

Although the one at the bottom of queen's drive hill could be replaced with one which was cycle permeable.

Posted 5 years ago #
EdinburghCycleCam
Member

@toomanybikes - I agree completely. There's no reason to allow private vehicles through the park when there's plenty of perfectly good alternatives running parallel.
I'd be tempted to stretch to saying taxis and private hire cars could be allowed, but they'd also be the least likely to follow the 20 mph limit.

I've emailed Martin as well (I've spoken to him before about the bike lanes and to get a copy of the park regulations), suggesting that the park be closed to traffic, and asking who I need to speak to about it.

Posted 5 years ago #
Snowy
Member

ANPR cameras cost very little now and are small enough to be mounted to look like a streetlamp. One at each entrance would likely solve the problem. Automatic cross-check of vehicle type, and issue fines to commercial vehicle owners.

The park would be much nicer without any infernal combustion engines at all, of course.

Posted 5 years ago #
Snowy
Member

Mind you, so would the Meadows.

Posted 5 years ago #
EdinburghCycleCam
Member

Nobody obviously speeding this morning for a change, but my god, this afternoon...

My camera battery died so it turned itself off. I can usually get another minute's life out of it when I turn it back on, so I did so when a grey jag overtook me at the top of Queen's Drive, on the uphill bit between the two roundabouts. They just managed to get in front of me (cutting me up) before the second round about and then floored it down the hill, doing 35-40 mph probably. The camera didn't start recording until they were out of sight, and I didn't catch the registration.

3/4 down the hill however, another driver came TEARING past me, doing about 50 mph. Strava says I was doing 31-32 mph at this point and they were doing around 20 mph more than me. Just got off the phone to 101 to report them.
Of course I caught up with them at the Holyrood Gait roundabout, followed them to the lights at Holyrood Road and got a good look at the driver before they turned off into the parliament...

Posted 5 years ago #
Frenchy
Member

good look at the driver before they turned off into the parliament...

Anyone we'd recognise?

Posted 5 years ago #
EdinburghCycleCam
Member

Anyone we'd recognise?

Possibly, I don't pay much attention to individual MSP's etc. It was a late 20's / early 30's Indian / Pakistani / Iranian woman. I'd recognise her if I saw her again.

Posted 5 years ago #
EdinburghCycleCam
Member

Just had the police around to see the video of the driver doing around 50 mph through the park. Apparently speed alone isn't enough to charge the driver with careless driving, and because there's no record of the driver's speed, they can't charge them with speeding either. So no action, basically.

The officers are going to speak to their traffic team to see if they can get some more speed checks, particularly at rush hour, which is when I said I see most speeding (even though this instance wasn't at rush hour).

I'll upload the video once I've heard back from the officer (tonight or tomorrow, apparently) and confirmed that there's no action being taken against the driver.

Posted 5 years ago #
chdot
Admin

Mmm

Can’t say I’m surprised at ‘legal position’

But

Other case on here end with ‘we’ll have a word with them’.

(Have to believe/hope it actually happens.)

“The officers are going to speak to their traffic team to see if they can get some more speed checks”

Hope that happens too.

Posted 5 years ago #
MediumDave
Member

While thinking about ways of getting a handle on scale of this problem in Holyrood and other areas (to aid prompting of the powers that be), I came across this most interesting toy:

https://github.com/msemple1111/average_alpr

Assuming one has the hardware (regrettably I do not have everything needed), after set-up for a particular site the software should be completely automated.

It's also likely possible to achieve the same effect with two video cameras with synced clocks so one can synchronize the videos later and use openAPLR to pull out the plates.

Assuming the cameras are far enough apart and (more or less) in a straight line, GPS should be sufficiently accurate to work out the distance between them for this purpose.

Anybody want to play?

Posted 5 years ago #
crowriver
Member

Can you not just take part in community speed gun trials instead? I recall hearing that the authorities were up for allowing ~~vigilantes~~ concerned local residents to borrow speed guns as a deterrent to irresponsible drivists. Maybe they come with complimentary gilets jaunes to don also?

Posted 5 years ago #
slowcoach
Member

assuming one has the hardware what is needed? - I couldn't understand the content of the github link.

Posted 5 years ago #
ejstubbs
Member

@MediumDave: Bear in mind that the use of such a system on public roads would almost certainly be subject to data protection rules. Likely not an issue if no-one notices, but as soon as someone comes to the attention of the polis as a result of the system's output I suspect that the source of the evidence would come under some scrutiny. (And before anyone suggests it: I doubt that a private individual could cite law enforcement as a justification. Systematic surveillance of public spaces is basically reserved to agents of government.)

Posted 5 years ago #
CycleCommute.CC
Member

@ejstubbs: It would be great fun though and could highlight the extent of the problem with hard evidence.

Posted 5 years ago #
neddie
Member

@MediumDave

I'd be interested in doing this. Need to find & convince a neighbour further down the street to take part...

Posted 5 years ago #
MediumDave
Member

The hardware needed is at least 2 IP cameras (of sufficient resolution, whatever that may happen to be); a moderately hefty PC to run the image analysis docker container(s) on, wireless network gear to connect all this up and (possibly) some kind of portable power supply for all this kit.

I can supply the PC and the network gear at least. The rest is more complicated and presumably will be quite finicky to set up reliably.

Regarding the speedgun trials - yes, all very well but I'm interested in average speed rather than point speeds. Furthermore, the speedgun user is supposed to be highly visible and to change driver behaviour as a result. Not quite what I'm trying to do.

Regarding data protection - I don't buy the argument that what I'm planning to do is any different to any private individual filming road users in a public place (e.g. with phone, helmet cam, dashcam etc). That is perfectly fine and indeed encouraged in the case of helmet/dashcams. It's what you do with the footage afterwards that matters.

Neddie's idea of filming from his and his neighbour's house might be sketchier due to the ICO's view on domestic CCTV

https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/domestic-cctv-systems-guidance-for-people-being-filmed/

With that in mind, my goal is to collect statistics so one can state (with some degree of authority) "there is a quantifiable speeding problem in location X, please to be enforcing the law". Once the vehicle speeds necessary to do this has been computed, the identifiers and video images can be discarded.

I certainly don't plan to undertake "enforcement" action myself. I just want data.

(and yes, this is mainly Just for Fun)

Posted 5 years ago #
chdot
Admin

Wow -

https://twitter.com/polscotrpu/status/1084146259815026688

(Need to do it more often!)

Posted 5 years ago #

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