Postie's to loose their bikes

tb
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Joined: 10 Jan 2007, 12:51pm

Postie's to loose their bikes

Post by tb »

twas on the news this morning, radio 4 news.
the postal delivery can apparently be done more efficiently by using vans ( as if there are'nt enough of those already! )
so your local postie will no longer be turning up on his / her bike.
don't suppose anybody has given a thought to the environmental impact, but that don't matter, we only do green when we want to promote or sell something.
the only upside of this is that all the post bikes are going to be donated to the ' third world ' where they're not wealthy enough to have cars.

what a crap decision this is, I know my postie likes delivering by bike cos he told me.
Last edited by tb on 10 May 2009, 10:04pm, edited 1 time in total.
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squeaker
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Re: Postie's to loose thier bikes

Post by squeaker »

Some (one?) of our local posties turns up in our road in a (his?) private car :roll:
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simonineaston
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Re: Postie's to loose thier bikes

Post by simonineaston »

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)
S
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MartinC
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Re: Postie's to loose thier bikes

Post by MartinC »

Presumably the calculation that vans were more efficient assumed that they were allowed to park illegaly to do their job.
skrx
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Re: Postie's to loose thier bikes

Post by skrx »

Article: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/b ... 251923.ece

The postmen I see in London have massive carts full of mail (like this).

The Times article says a bike can't carry enough mail. Perhaps Royal Mail should consider cargo bikes.
gilesjuk
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Re: Postie's to loose thier bikes

Post by gilesjuk »

They haven't factored in the cost of vehicles, vehicle repairs, sick days and the staff turnover. If I was a postie on a bike I would leave.
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rbrian
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Re: Postie's to loose thier bikes

Post by rbrian »

skrx wrote:The Times article says a bike can't carry enough mail. Perhaps Royal Mail should consider cargo bikes.


Or they could employ more posties, rather than expecting them to do twice as much work.
Cynic? No, an optimist tempered by experience.
cjchambers
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Re: Postie's to loose thier bikes

Post by cjchambers »

Although I've not been following the story closely, I've heard various things about Royal Mail phasing out bicycle deliveries. Like the contributors to this thread, I was always under the impression it was purely for reasons of efficiency. However, in the Telegraph yesterday (link), the chief executive Adam Crozier is quoted as saying that . . . .

Adam Crozier wrote:“[Bicycle deliveries] posed a wider safety risk associated with British street networks where the rider is exposed to greater risks than other vehicle users. We expect to see a reduction in the number of delivery accidents as a result of our rollout of the new delivery technology, as a substantial proportion of accidents are currently liked to the use of bicycles on busy road networks"


:?
mw3230
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Re: Postie's to loose thier bikes

Post by mw3230 »

gilesjuk wrote:They haven't factored in the cost of vehicles, vehicle repairs, sick days and the staff turnover. If I was a postie on a bike I would leave.


I bet they have. Head Office will be full of accountants doing that kind of sum all day and converting the results into presentations for management.

Yeah, of course. If you don't like the decision to do away with bikes just leave - there are millions of other jobs to choose from and the mortgage isn't that important really. Doh!
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John Holiday
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Re: Postie's to loose their bikes

Post by John Holiday »

The report I read spoke particularly of cycling 'being too dangerous'!
It would be interesting to see how they reached that conclusion & how many 'postpeople' are off work as a result of cycle accidents as opposed to other accidents!
It sounds like another decision made without coherent thought.
As a National Standards Instructor, I should be happy to provide some training!
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Swizz69
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Re: Postie's to loose thier bikes

Post by Swizz69 »

How changing to vans will be more efficient is anybodys guess - even if they do have to park illegally. For getting around an urban area, there is nothing more efficient than a bike surely!?

I would hope that the unions are going to wade in here as the only 'efficiency' I can see coming out of this is getting one postman to do the job of three or four, driving to/from each round & delivering on foot with a bag :evil:
dave holladay
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Re: Postie's to loose thier bikes

Post by dave holladay »

If you see the state of some of the vans and the driving standards, it may be that the posties will be safer - but I suspect that the overall safety of the public at large on foot or on their bikes might actually reduce by a small margin......
cjchambers
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Re: Postie's to loose thier bikes

Post by cjchambers »

It's the same sort of self-defeating argument that many people (including myself sometimes, I'll admit) use for making short car journeys . . .

"I don't want to walk/cycle to the shops - it's far too dangerous because of all the cars. I'll take the car instead"

It's like an arms race, I suppose. The individual wins but society loses :(
PH
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Re: Postie's to loose thier bikes

Post by PH »

Swizz69 wrote:How changing to vans will be more efficient is anybodys guess - even if they do have to park illegally. For getting around an urban area, there is nothing more efficient than a bike surely!?

There is a fair bit of misunderstanding as to just what is going on. It's not just a matter of replacing bikes with vans, it's a whole new way of managing deliveries. The van will work as a mobile hub, with a team of postmen working from it, initially three though it could rise. The team will take out all their deliveries for the day in one go, at present they either have to return to the delivery office several times or have someone come out to top them up. The percentage of time away from the office actually delivering mail will vary depending on several factors, not least how much heavy junk mail they're delivering, but it can be quite low. A knock on affect of not having to return to a delivery office, is that they then won't need them to be so close to the rounds, though the Royal Mail deny it the unions are sure the new system will result in many offices closing. I'm sure this will all have been thoroughly costed, manpower will be the big expense in mail delivery, I can easily see how hours saved would pay the van costs.
Whether you see these changes as a good thing depends partially on whether you see the Royal Mail as a business or a public service. The threat of the removal of the monopoly and partial privatisation are to a large extent pushing this forward. The unions don't like it, every time they build up a head of steam to take some action, they seem to pull back sensing they have little public support...
gilesjuk
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Re: Postie's to loose their bikes

Post by gilesjuk »

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.
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