While doing one of our regular clifton deliveries, a quick detour to check out the road where the HGV got wedged a while back.
Yes, there is a new HGV shaped dent on the house at the top of Clifton Vale.
Looking up, this is the view the drive would have had.
What's not clear is where was he going: left towards clifton, or bearing rightwards. The latter is possibly marked as a straight line on the satnav, which it is, provided your car is nimble enough to swerve round and through the oncoming lane. Hatchbacks can do this, but things like estate cars have trouble.
What the HGV driver was thinking we don't know, especially as the hill is about 20% all the way up. At what point did they start to have doubts -and yet still decide to continue.
This is just going to lead to street clutter as every road from Hotwells to Cliftonwood is now going to have a sign prohibiting lorries -which can only inconvenience those of us who do know how to get our toys through the rat-runs.
Over in London the militant tax dodgers are asking the hard question "why are lorries and HGVs allowed in our inner cities?" An interesting question, but here's another one " why do tax-dodgers cycle on the roads that the HGVs have to use? There are plenty of back roads. In Bristol you can recognise them because they have hills on them. If the cyclists go down Gloucester Road or the A4 and say "there are lorries there", well, there are alternatives: the hills of Montpelier, Totterdown and Clifton. HGVs do not normally go there.
On the way up, if you can't see anyone in front of you, go for it.
On the way down, hang back enough to get a view, and go for it if nobody is obviously coming up. But swing wide before even beginning the turn in, or you won't be lined up to take the next corner
You can't do this in an HGV -which is why we deliver our "adult entertainment products" to the Clifton area in the official Bristol Traffic white van. It takes the corners, and if it gets a couple of scrapes on the way -not only does the van not look any worse, but it doesn't leave anything more incriminating than some white paint.
We love taking visitors from the US through Montpelier at speed, watching them in teror stamping the ground where the brake pedal should be, as we drive our van through at 40 mph with millimetres between us and the parked cars on either side while texting ahead to our destination. But sometimes we like variety, and other fun place is Cornwallis Crescent and Clifton Vale. That blind Z-bend/T-junction when you are coming up the hill is fantastic. No visibility, you have to get the line exactly right or you get stuck.
This week we are making it more entertaining by making our US visitor cycle round, so watching someone from "cycle-friendly Oregon" encountering urban UK roads, so we took the opportunity to take them down this and see if they'd survive.
The first issue here is that one of the cars in front gets its line completely wrong. For reference, here are the tactics
Descending from Goldney Ave: hold back until you see a gap, then commit, but swing out before turning in, Alpine style. This early swing out ensures that you finish the turn on your side of the road, which is better for bad visibility situations, and here, ensures you can get round.
Coming from Cornwallis Crescent: head through, don't show weakness.
Coming up from Clifton Vale: head up, keep left ready to swerve right into Goldney Ave.
After the entertainment of a car having to back up twice, our U.S. tourist gets the give way markings wrong and almost loses out to the car on Corwallis Crescent. More importantly, by waiting where he is, he's lost visibility of what's happening on Clifton Vale, which can be tactically unwise. This time, he survives as the cars in front have stopped motor traffic heading up, but next time may not be so safe.
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