Woman's shock as Royal Mail van crashes into garden

[TrueBlueTerrier]

http://www.thisissurreytoday.co.uk/stor ... story.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A DORKING household got an unexpected delivery when a Royal Mail van crashed through the garden fence.

Louise Bingham was at home in Chandler Way when she heard the van crash into a wall and wooden fence in the back garden.

"I was upstairs and I heard a noise but I didn't think anything of it," she told the Advertiser.

"My neighbour knocked on my door and said 'have you seen your garden?' I looked out of the back door and realised that there was a van basically parked in the back of my garden."

Miss Bingham, who works for the charity Rainbow Trust, said the driver had been delivering letters at the top of the road and had taken his eye off the van.

"He was convinced he had put the handbrake on," she said. "He did about five houses, came back and realised it was not where he had left it. It had rolled back down the hill.

"He was only a young lad, he was absolutely mortified."

Speaking about the incident, which happened at about 9.45am on Friday, Royal Mail spokesman Nick Martens said: "There was in incident involving a Royal Mail van which resulted in some damage to a wall and a fence of a local resident.

"Thankfully there were no injuries, and the matter is being investigated."

The incident was part of a bad few days for Royal Mail, as on Monday a computer system crash caused chaos for customers trying to send packages in time for Christmas.

Quinton Carpenter, 73, of Cotmandene Street, was at the Post Office in Dorking High Street when the system failed.

He said: "There was a queue of people the length of the shop trying to get organised for Christmas.

"Staff told us that this was their busiest few days and because of that their systems had gone down, so the only thing we could do was buy stamps. I had only popped in for a book of stamps so I was one of the lucky ones I think."

A Royal Mail spokesman said: "We are very sorry for the inconvenience this problem has caused customers. We know how important the Post Office is to our customers at all times, but especially at Christmas."

[Ahebban]

Fingers crossed that RM show some Christmas spirit towards the young driver

[steven100]

Fingers crossed that RM show some Christmas spirit towards the young driver

Your fired!!!!!

[DGP1]

You're not supposed to park on a slope (you should have big posters around your office telling you that).

[slave]

You're not supposed to park on a slope (you should have big posters around your office telling you that).

Of course, the entire country is flat and has limitless parking spaces available and oh you get the picture!


Surely stories about incidents like this will become more common as vehicle usage increases significantly with p&l? People forced to rush and cut corners (and who don't know better) will make mistakes, simple really.

[DGP1]

You're not supposed to park on a slope (you should have big posters around your office telling you that).

Of course, the entire country is flat and has limitless parking spaces available and oh you get the picture!


Surely stories about incidents like this will become more common as vehicle usage increases significantly with p&l? People forced to rush and cut corners (and who don't know better) will make mistakes, simple really.

Vauxhalls have dodgy handbrakes anyway (I watched my van sail off down the road once with it's handbrake fully on) which just means that if I've to park on a slope then I turn the wheels into the kerb, the buggers will do anything to get rid of people and I'm not giving them the ammo.

[Lounge Lizard]

Not much of a fence.

[TeeferTiger]

You're not supposed to park on a slope (you should have big posters around your office telling you that).

Of course, the entire country is flat and has limitless parking spaces available and oh you get the picture!


Surely stories about incidents like this will become more common as vehicle usage increases significantly with p&l? People forced to rush and cut corners (and who don't know better) will make mistakes, simple really.

Vauxhalls have dodgy handbrakes anyway (I watched my van sail off down the road once with it's handbrake fully on) which just means that if I've to park on a slope then I turn the wheels into the kerb, the buggers will do anything to get rid of people and I'm not giving them the ammo.

That was the problem a while back when we were told not to ratchet the handbrakes up on some vans and to push the button in and lift the hand brake to apply it on others wasn't it? They got a load of new vans where it stated in the handbook how to apply the handbrake and it was basically different to how we'd all been taught to apply the handbrake when we'd passed our tests. So there was all these new vans disappearing down hills because the handbrakes hadn't been applied "properly" and RM were trying to blame the posties despite it being actually the vans that was different.

Something like that anyway.