IF YOU don't want to be in the newspaper then it is best not to crash your car outside the Evening Post.

A 'white van man' stopped traffic and passers-by at lunch-time after missing the slip road exit off Old Market roundabout onto Temple Way and smashing into the kerb, right in front of the Evening Post building, just as journalists were leaving for lunch.

Driver Andy Johnson, 24, from Warmley told the Post: "The car behind me sped up and started coming alongside and distracted me. It was a simple accident."

Mr Johnson was delivering fruit and veg in a white Mercedes van for wholesaler Burton's Go Bananas when he crunched the front of his van into the pavement at 12:15pm, dislodging one of the kerbstones and causing an oil leak on the road.

He said he was unhurt apart from a small cut to one of his forearms.

"The air bag worked and the seatbelt worked so that's something."

A police car and two officers attended to alert other drivers to the vehicle until it could be moved.

The fruit and veg was rescued by another company van and sand was used to mop up the oil leak.

Nobody else was injured in the accident and the road remained open.