Friday 15 May 2009

Product Placement: DHL

We are pleased to see that the DHL deliveries company is able to successfully deliver packages to people cycling to work or school down the Cotham Hill contraflow at 08:42 on a weekday morning.
Clearly there is no other reason why the DHL lorry reg # FJ05XEH would cross a solid white line and park on double yellow lines, not just preventing downhill cycle traffic but removing all visibility for passing on this road, not during the peak traffic period.

This integrated on-line shopping/delivery on the school-run/commute will increase the value of cycling-city initiatives, as it provides extra value from bike lanes.

Hopefully the cyclist they were waiting for came along, picked up their package and the lorry could then go off to block another bike lane.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
SteveL said...

followup: DHL are looking in to this. The previous comment was deleted as it included their work email address, which would have then accrued too much spam.

Anonymous said...

As promised, I have investigated this incident and can tell you the following, which I would hope goes some way to explaining the above photo.
The 2-man crew were delivering an electronic imaging machine to the medical faculty outside of which the vehicle was parked. Unfortunately, the machine would not go through the back door (where there is a small car park), so the crew had no choice but to take it through the front door. The tachograph record for the vehicle shows that it was stationary for 8 minutes. This was whilst the crew removed the machine from the truck, and placed in just inside the premises. One member of the crew then returned to the truck and removed it to a safer place, before retruning to assist his crew-mate with the installation of the machine.
I believe that the crew acted in the best practicable way (it may not be perfect) under difficult circumstances. However, the fact that I have conducted this investigation amongst my driving team, has highlighted the issues involved, and I hope raised their awareness.