Bristol City Council<\/a> are understood to be installing safety barriers to shield the pub and the other buildings on the corner of Merchants Road in Hotwells.<\/p>\nThe landlady of the Merchants Arms, which had its frontage half destroyed in the last crash back in late March, said this time the lamppost on the corner of the building took the full force of the impact from the car.<\/p>\n
\u201cA neighbour called me to tell me what had happened, and I was walking back from a friend\u2019s at the time and came to the scene,\u201d explained Emily Rogers, the landlady of the Merchants Arms.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe woman seemed badly hurt. Luckily the pub building itself didn\u2019t suffer much damage because the car hit the pole in front of the building first,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe police were here within minutes, and the ambulance too.\u201d<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for Avon & Somerset police said they were called in the middle of the night. \u201cShortly before 3am we received a report that a blue Ford Ka had collided with a building in Merchants Road in Hotwells,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOfficers arrived at the scene within minutes of the call and arrested a man in his 30s on suspicion of dangerous driving, driving whilst unfit through drink, and failing to provide a specimen for analysis.<\/p>\n
\u201cA passenger in the car was taken to hospital with injuries that were neither life-threatening or life-changing. She has since been discharged from hospital.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe arrested man has since been released under investigation while the police investigation continues. Any witnesses or anyone with any dashcam footage which could help our investigation should call 101 using the reference number 5226169932,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
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(Image: PAUL GILLIS \/ Reach Plc)<\/p>\n
Back in late March, four people were injured when a car ploughed in through the front of the pub, trashing the inside and smashing a large hole in the frontage.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t the first time the pub had been hit by a car – the same thing happened in 2017.<\/p>\n
The incident in March led to calls for action to be taken to, firstly protect the pub building from being hit again, and secondly to slow down drivers coming round the bend of Merchants Road, heading towards the Plimsoll Bridge ramp and the start of the Portway.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe council are due to come on Tuesday this coming week to install proper crash barriers,\u201d said Emily. \u201cIt was just unlucky this happened just a few days before.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/1_r-has-crashed-into-The-Merchants-Arms-in-Hotwells-Bristol-5jpeg.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
(Image: Jon Craig)<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have agreed to install big barriers that will be secured to the ground at the kerbside, which will protect people walking on the pavement, sitting outside and inside the pub, and the pub building itself,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cLong term, I\u2019m told they are working on plans to change the road layout so it is safer and drivers have to slow down around this bend,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘The police were here within minutes, and the ambulance too’ The scene of a crash in Hotwells, just…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1039349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8818],"tags":[9312,381,3893,748,188,393,548,4884,33622,9731,16,15],"class_list":["post-1039348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bristol","tag-avon-and-somerset-constabulary","tag-bristol","tag-bristol-city-council","tag-britain","tag-crime","tag-england","tag-ford","tag-great-britain","tag-hotwells","tag-traffic-travel","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116783923185598368","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1039348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1039348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1039349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1039348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1039348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1039348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/2_TCBR200626CrashBRIjpeg.jpg\")
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