Postie's to loose their bikes

[reohn2]

What a c*** idea! Have the management read all the research about relative journey times in urban environments? Have they considered the environmental impact?? Have they worked out the impact on the posties' health??? - bet Pashley are cross about it, too - I think they make the bikes...(Assuming this decision refers to which vehicles they're going to ask the posties to use in an urban environment...I spose vans make sense in the country)

Have you seen the track record of Royal Mail management? they couldn't organise the preverbial in a brewery.

[Phil_Lee]

Have you seen the track record of Royal Mail management? they couldn't organise the preverbial in a brewery.

Indeed I have, including more than one multi-million pound project designed and operated with deliberate inefficiencies in order to "prove" to some other faction of management (to use the word in it's broadest possible sense) or government that the idea was unworkable.

I think I'm inclined to the view that this is an attempt to reduce the pension deficit by reducing the amount of healthy exercise (and therefore the life expectancy) of the average postie.

I can't see any other possible advantage to the post office.

[iviehoff]

A keen cyclist working for Royal Mail management informs me that the bikes are being withdrawn because of the accident rate.

It is a damning indictment of the safety of British roads for cycling.

[GrahamNR17]

My postie turns up this morning with a brand-spanking new helmet, in red and black. He said they've all been given one... at the same time as being told the bikes will be leaving as soon as the new trolleys arrive

[ground hopper]

The problem is they have based their decision on the carrying capacity of a bike with two panniers. If they had a trailer or a proper cargo bike then they could carry a lot more.

With companies trying to be carbon neutral I don't see how scrapping a lot of bikes and buying vans can be seen as good.

Actually believe it or not we are not allowed to use the panniers for carrying any mail!

As a postie for 20+ years it will be terrible to lose the bikes. In that time i can only think of one accident in my office involving a postman and a bike. I do not intend to go for a delivery which will now use a van, nor do i intend to learn to drive if Royal Mail pushes me to. I shall have to get a delivery within a one mile radias of my office, which will use a high capacity trolley as delivery method. Frankly getting rid of bikes is crazy as in my city a bike will always get to a destination quicker than a van. All deliveries in my office are within a 20 minute cycle.

But this is Royal Mail we are talking about. Full of stupid ideas. Remember Consignia!

[drsquirrel]

Actually believe it or not we are not allowed to use the panniers for carrying any mail!

I was hoping to hear from some posties here, keep us up to date with what they are trying on (rather than just what we are hearing)!

If you don't use the panniers for mail, what do you use them for?

[ground hopper]

Actually believe it or not we are not allowed to use the panniers for carrying any mail!

I was hoping to hear from some posties here, keep us up to date with what they are trying on (rather than just what we are hearing)!

If you don't use the panniers for mail, what do you use them for?

A place to put ones helmet or keep a waterproof coat in!

Another postie on the forum has explained the RM reasoning as to why we will be in vans. But this is a normal day for me. At the moment i have around 6 bags of mail a day to deliver to 580 customers. I take out my first bag on the bike, about a 20 min cycle to the start. A van driver delivers the rest of my bags and other posties bags to either a shop or specially designed lock up bins. After delivering the bags the van driver goes on to deliver parcels and do collections. Under the new scheme we will pair up with a driver and take all our bags with us, plus we will both deliver the large parcels. With new automation coming in our offices mail will be sorted faster so we will get out on delivery earlier (that's what RM say anyway). This means our 3.5 delivery span will increase to 5 hours or more. But it'll be ok as we will have new trollies to push around! 3.5 hours non-stop walking is bad enough now, what 5 hours will be like i'm not looking forward to finding out.