OK. You guys seem to be having a little trouble because it's foreign. As Sundae Girl says, it is clearly a pedestrian zone. Weird concept to you yanks, I know.
Weirder still, in order to get the pedestrians to the zone, there's a free bus service! The buses are allowed into the zone to drop off the pedestrians. (Walking people.)
Why are there cars there, you ask? because it's probably only a pedestrian zone during shopping hours. And disabled drivers are usually allowed in to such zones. There are a lot of them about. Google "automated bollards city centre" (spelled that way) and variations on that theme and you'll get to read all about it.
And if you think those drivers didn't know what they were doing, boy, are you naive/foreign. Drivers don't drive that close to one another in the UK unless they are trying to sneak through an automated barrier. And the area will have been well signed. There's two illuminated no entry signs and a great big freaking stop sign painted on the road for a start, and there will have been more signs before that. Many more. We Brits do signs. We love our signs so much that the law says there has to be a sign warning you of a speed trap. Go figure.
Also, all the cars vehicles clearly speaded up, even though they were approaching a pedestrian crossing. You would only risk this if you needed to speed up for a reason. Why would they risk it? Well there are always those who are so stupid they don't realise that they are not any faster/more special than the rest. And there are the eternal optimists. And there are those who just like the challenge. Think about all those people who try to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. Then imagine them in a car faced with some automated bollards.
