Help save Royal Mail bikes

adamant
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Help save Royal Mail bikes

Post by adamant »

I have set up what I hope will act as an on-line petition against the Royal Mail's plans to significantly reduce the amount of mail delivered by bike. Please add your comments to show your support:

http://deliverbybike.blogspot.com/
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Swizz69
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Location: Hyde

Re: Help save Royal Mail bikes

Post by Swizz69 »

Would love to but it won't accept my Wordpress account details :|
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memopix
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Re: Help save Royal Mail bikes

Post by memopix »

Bicycles are zero-carbon, cheap, reliable and congestion-cutting - so why is the Royal Mail planning to phase out deliveries by posties on two wheels? Save Royal Mail Cycle Delivery! Please join "Keep Posties on Bikes" on Facebook.
mw3230
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Joined: 31 May 2007, 11:22pm
Location: Newcastle upon Tyne

Re: Help save Royal Mail bikes

Post by mw3230 »

I am not a postie and I do not know their business. My postman tells me the last thing he wants is a bike and he suggests he is not alone in that. Perhaps the Post Office have made a sound business decision
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rualexander
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Re: Help save Royal Mail bikes

Post by rualexander »

In this country, and in most neighbourhoods, a bike (as currently used by RM) is not a practical means of enabling the efficient delivery of mail. In this country most mail is delivered through letterboxes in the doors of properties which means that the postie has to walk at least the final few yards up the path or driveway. having done that it would not be sensible or efficient to then get back on a bike and pedal a few feet along the street to the next property. In countries where mail is delivered to mailboxes out on the pavement, using bikes is a practical method, providing it is legal to cycle on the pavement.
The proposed new delivery method of two posties going out in a van and using that as a delivery hub, doing away with the need for mail to be dropped off at the grey boxes you see on the streets, would be a potential method that could use some form of cargo bike instead of a van, but bear in mind that in this cargo bike your postie would be carrying up to 100kg of mail potentially occupying a volume in excess of one cubic metre and you might start to see the possible difficulties of even using cargo bikes. Ok, 100kg is not so great a weight that it would be impossible to cycle, but it would probably be slow, especially in hilly areas, and besides that, your postie already has a pretty extreme physical workload to cope with walking up to eight miles carrying a heavy mailbag without having to cycle a heavy cargo bike load several miles every day on top of that.
bodach
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Joined: 6 Jan 2007, 7:31pm

Re: Help save Royal Mail bikes

Post by bodach »

Don't know about current conditions but I delivered mail by bike in the late 1950's in Helensburgh. This was generally pretty flat but sometimes with high winds and I was young and fit.At the time this seemed to me the only sensible way of doing this "walk" as there were reasonable distances to travel to start and also some houses were pretty far apart. Doing this on foot would not have been possible in the time and a van would certainly have been impractical. I used to get into trouble with the union rep. for going round too fast but as I said earlier I was young and fit. Loads could also be heavy sometimes but the bike helped a lot then.Probably people are not as fit as we were in those days due to the prevalence of motor transport and this may have some influence. This will probably bring down howls of wrath on my head tho'.
whoops
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Joined: 7 Jan 2007, 11:01pm

Re: Help save Royal Mail bikes

Post by whoops »

If I was a postman I would be clapping my wet, cold, freezing hands, while fighting against the fog , snow, rain, ice, and that's without trying to keep the mail dry because of the moaning from an ungrateful public. then there's the risk of theft from the cycle when they leave it to deliver to the houses. After all you can hardly expect them or appreciate it if they rode up everyone's front path. I've noticed that town postman who occasionally come to villages to do their walk arrive in there own cars and work out from them. Save the Royal Mail Bikes . . . not me, thanks. Good riddance to them I say.
PS I've never been a postman, but I was a paper boy.
rualexander
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Re: Help save Royal Mail bikes

Post by rualexander »

bodach wrote:.....Probably people are not as fit as we were in those days due to the prevalence of motor transport and this may have some influence. This will probably bring down howls of wrath on my head tho'.


People in general may be less fit but I doubt if that applies to most posties, after a couple of months in the job they are all pretty fit, walking up to four hours a day carrying heavy mailbags for up to eight miles including climbing numerous flights of stairs in blocks of flats. Not many overweight posties about.
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Yorkshireman
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Re: Help save Royal Mail bikes

Post by Yorkshireman »

Colin N.
Lincolnshire is mostly flat ... but the wind is mostly in your face!
http://www.freewebs.com/yorkshireman1/
mw3230
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Re: Help save Royal Mail bikes

Post by mw3230 »



What consensus of the membership led to this action? How is the membership to benefit from this? The posts above do not suggest support for the petition promoted by the OP and I would guess that the posters do not support this CTC campaign either.
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larfingravy
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Re: Help save Royal Mail bikes

Post by larfingravy »

No postman is being forced onto a bike.

What appears to be the problem is that the Royal Mail are removing the OPTION of a postman using a bike in the correct circumstances.

To a cycling campaigning group that has to appear a backward step.
mw3230
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Joined: 31 May 2007, 11:22pm
Location: Newcastle upon Tyne

Re: Help save Royal Mail bikes

Post by mw3230 »

larfingravy wrote:No postman is being forced onto a bike.

What appears to be the problem is that the Royal Mail are removing the OPTION of a postman using a bike in the correct circumstances.

To a cycling campaigning group that has to appear a backward step.


Without any wish to hijack this thread, a CYCLISTS CAMPAIGNING GROUP is what many fear the CYCLISTS TOURING CLUB is/has become. Promoting safe cycling is one thing, campaigning about the way in which a company runs it's business is another.
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robbo
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Re: Help save Royal Mail bikes

Post by robbo »

mw3230 wrote:... Promoting safe cycling is one thing, campaigning about the way in which a company runs it's business is another.


Well said, what next? Tree fellers to use axes instead of chainsaws? Turners going back to treadle lathes?
thirdcrank
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Re: Help save Royal Mail bikes

Post by thirdcrank »

Cyclists going back to fixed wheel? What's that you say? Some have? Well, I never.
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Phil_Lee
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Re: Help save Royal Mail bikes

Post by Phil_Lee »

mw3230 wrote:
larfingravy wrote:No postman is being forced onto a bike.

What appears to be the problem is that the Royal Mail are removing the OPTION of a postman using a bike in the correct circumstances.

To a cycling campaigning group that has to appear a backward step.


Without any wish to hijack this thread, a CYCLISTS CAMPAIGNING GROUP is what many fear the CYCLISTS TOURING CLUB is/has become. Promoting safe cycling is one thing, campaigning about the way in which a company runs it's business is another.


3 words and an explanation :

Safety in numbers

Increasing the numbers of cyclists is one of the very few things that we absolutely KNOW to have a positive effect on cycling safety - much more so that any kind of facility, awareness campaign or protective equipment.

How long would it take to replace all the cycle trips that are currently performed by the post office, to get the safety in numbers effect back to where it is at the moment?

If we are serious about promoting the safety of cyclists, any acceptance of a major reduction in their numbers would be perverse.
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