According to Road Policing Scotland, the lorry was parked on the pavement of Blackhall Road in Inverurie.
As the embedded street view map below shows, the road has a Morrisons supermarket on one side and a police station on the other.
A cross comparison of the police photo and Google Street view shows that officers were not exaggerating when they said the lorry driver had parked on the pavement right outside Inverurie Police Station.
The police added that the lorry driver had popped into a cafe for something to eat at Morrisons. The trucker’s break was nonetheless soon interrupted after being informed over the supermarket’s public address system that he had been fined £50.
The tweet from Road Policing Scotland attracted no shortage of replies, among which there was both praise and criticism.
One of the replies read: “Well done. Need more of this throughout Scotland.” Another said: “If only the cops in Edinburgh would fine such drivers! They just drive by here.”
#BlackhallRoad #Inverurie #Aberdeenshire
Park your HGV on the footpath. Do it right outside the Police Station. Go into a nearby supermarket. Have a sit down meal at the cafe. Get called over the tanoy to come and receive your £50 fine from a local #NERPU representative. pic.twitter.com/BMtwBK7Cg0
— Road Policing Scotland (@polscotrpu) February 8, 2023
A number of lorry drivers understandably took a different view.
One truck driver tweeted: “It’s all very well giving this person a fine but all the parking spaces have been taken away and the law makes us take a 45 minute rest.”
A passenger transport manager also tweeted: “Yet wagon drivers don’t have the facilities to go anywhere in town. The car parks are too small. The loading areas have cars in them. What’s a driver meant to do? Break the laws of a legal break and starve?”
When one twitter user asked if there was somewhere for the lorry driver to park, an individual suggested there was “an industrial estate on the opposite of the car park to where he parked.”
As the map above shows, there is indeed an industrial estate by Morrisons. However, it is questionable whether a HGV could have easily parked there in order to then use the facilities at the nearby supermarket.