SUNDAY 21 MARCH 2010

Spent today recording video from the car as I drove into Kirkcaldy from a variety of entry points.

I set the camera onto a mini tripod which sat in a shallow recess on the car’s dashboard.  As I was also driving the car,  I had to ensure that the camera was switched on and recording in video mode before I drove off. I realise that this exercise was potential law breaking ( similar to using a mobile phone ). I was wary of being observed by any police vehicles etc and took note of signs taht informed me that there were police cameras in certain areas.            

PRACTICALITIES OF THE EXERCISE

The tripod worked reasonably well apart from having to touch hold  it as I went round roundabouts and junctions as it realy could have been more stable if I had stuck it ontom the dashboard with strong tape and / or blutack or similar. The camera, although small was a bit top heavy and was prone to toppling over as i drove off and changed gears from 1st to 2nd.

1  I drove into Kirkcaldy from the east coast route ( A955)  at Dysart and I also drove in from the main Leven/ St Andrews road  ( A915 ) as it approached the Boreland / Randolph area.

I also drove into Kirkcaldy from the northside of the main  A92 from Glenrothes as this is the main route into the town.

It became clear that although there is directional signage, it is inconsistent and breaks do appear at different points of the route into the town centre. In some cases the information is confusing as it has too much local information and in some points , there is conflicting infomation unrelated to traffic route wayfinding. ( car wash etc )

It was a very useful exercise recording the actual road routes in as it enabled me to see certain aspects that previously I had assumed were clear and understandable as I live in the town.

The video recordings will more than likely need re-recoding with better equipment , if I intend to use this type of data gathering evidence in my developed research proposal.

I also walked on foot today to photograph the signage as stills and I now have  a series of visual evidence that I can analyse and disseminate for my project development. I will update the blog to include these asap.