Actually, they are our photographs

A comment arrives on our Never park up the inside of an HGV post.

YOU HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY YOU ARE DIFFUSING TOTALLY WRONG INFORMATIONS AND
I'M ACTUALLY AMAZED AND VERY ANNOYED THAT YOU CAN DO SUCH THING AND USE PHOTOGRAPHS THAT ARE NOT YOURS AND USE THEM AT YOUR WILL TO ILLUSTRATE YOUR POINT.THIS VEHICLE WAS MINE AND WAS PARKED (NO ONE WAS IN IT) LEGALLY ON THE ROAD AND THE DRIVER HIT MY CAR WITH THE BACK OF HIS LORRY.I WON THE CASE WITH THE INSURANCE (OBVIOUSLY) AND HAD 3 WITNESSES TO CONFIRM THE INCIDENT.INSTEAD OF TALKING COMPLETE NONSENSE YOU SHOULD CHECK THE ACCURACY OF YOUR FACTS MR SO CALLED BLOGGER. THE FACT IS THAT OVERSIZE LORRIES SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO ENTER SUCH NARROW AND TIGHT ROAD AS THEY'VE CAUSED SEVERAL INCIDENTS OF THE SAME NATURE IN THAT STREET.I HOPE YOU'LL HAVE THE DIGNITY TO PUBLISH MY COMMENT AND DIFFUSE THE REAL INFORMATION AND NOT WHAT SUITS BEST YOUR CASE. THE TRUTH IS THE TRUTH NO MATTER WHAT YOU MAY THINK OF IT.




Well, where do we begin?

1. You are correct, we have no idea what we are talking about.
2. The right to talk complete nonsense is a fundamental aspect of press freedom.
3. They are our photos.

One of our reporters pedalled past about 09:00 that morning, at which point the cardboard wasn't there, just a rear hatch that looked like it had be ripped off. Given the fairly distraught woman nearby, they chose to continue & not take pics. It was on the way back from work that this photo was taken.

Taken: 13/feb/2012 at 16:40, ISO 200 f/3.3, 1/30s, 25mm, Manual white balance: cloudy. The full resolution pics are 4000x3000 if you want them.


Now, we do have a reasonable amount of coverage of HGVs on our site. For example,

• how a war-on-motoring city tries to stop HGVs getting to Clifton.
• How a failure to widen the back streets of Montpelier makes it impossible to get a lorry down them without dragging parked cars along (and yes, we would have provided a witness there if needed)
• How trying to drive round Bristol in an HGV is a stressful job.
• How bicycles end up underneath them [1,2]

Now, we do recognise your complaint about narrow roads being unsuited to HGVs -but you have to recognise that in a modern society, HGVs need to be able to drive down every road in the city.

How else can they deliver pre-prepared salad to the Tesco corner shop of Clifton if they can't park on double yellow lines and zebra crossings?

How else can they deliver cheese to the Tesco "flammable" express of Cheltenham Road if they can't park in the bike lane?

How else can they park at an empty dual carriageway except on the shared use pavement?

We're afraid that you'll just have to accept that losing 1-2 cars a week to passing HGVs is the price of living near the Miner's Arms and Farm pubs. We'll take submissions of other incidents, and you get to retain copyright of your images.

In the mean time, please enjoy the rest of our site.

Never park up the inside of an HGV

The militant cyclists are saying "It's not our fault that HGVs kill us -they shouldn't be there", and now they even have the Times on their side

We, and our sponsors, Tesco, say "HGVs are needed in our city to deliver an optimised supply chain, if anyone gets run over by one it is their own fault for being on the inside of the vehicle"

This is why a lot of cycle safety training in London is dedicated to make it clear to people on bikes that they are invisible from a cab of an HGV, so should never go up alongside them, or end up in an ASL in front of one.

We have another group of people who need to be better educated.

Take this road, St Werburgh's Road.

If you were in Montpelier, a car with its rear window replaced with cardboard and big scrapes down the side wouldn't get a second glance -but here we are in St Werburghs. What is up?

Apparently, the owner of this car dangerously parked their car on the inside of an HGV.

The HGV -entirely innocently, as the car was hiding in its blind spot- scraped down the side of the car, caught the rear bumper and pulled it off. It also clipped the rear hatch, pulling that up, bending it, and in the process shattering the window.

Why did this happen? Because the car driver, recklessly, parked their car on the inside of where an HGV would go past some ten hours later. For this reason, it is their own fault.

We say: people like this need to go on a "safe parking near HGVs" course, rather than complain about passing trucks from destroying their vehicles. At the very least, they could use that spare space to the right of the picture, the "pavement".