Bicycles are BAD for your health!!?

just went to the post office delivery place to pick up a parcel and was talking to a
rotund gent behind the glass window.
he told me that the post office had to get their car park/ working area mapped out in nice bright painted areas as the local jurassic brigade were forever parking their cars within the post office yard to minimise their footsteps to said collection window.

the areas in which you're permitted to walk have big bold yellow borders (so that cataract kathleen and glaucoma gregor can stagger around without getting hit by a van) and nice bright white footprints stamped within them to ensure the geriatrics realise that they are in a "safe" zone. anyway, there were big printed notices on the glass partition telling these old fossils that under no circumstances were they to parks their cars in the post office grounds as the gpo has just been given a whole lot of new vans which of course makes the whole area much busier. why? (here it comes...)

health and safety inspectors paid them a visit and deemed all of their post office bicycles a health hazard and have had them removed, sent off to kenya as charity and ordered the post office to give them vans to do their rounds instead!!

what the hell is going on with this country ??!!!!

:x

and you cant get a job a postman unless you have a driving licence

It's all fracked,as they say.

The lunatics have taken over the asylum. :facepalm:

What have they got against Kenya? :s

This all kicked off a decade ago. A postie was given a bike, sent on his way, fell off and broke his leg. He sued and won over half a million in compo. The court ruled that bicycles were covered by the PUWER regulations, were a piece of machinery that could could death or serious injury, and the Royal Mail had neglected its lawful duty to give adequate instruction in the safe operation of that machinery. The regs also require they are maintained properly and records kept, something else that was too difficult for them, so they never bothered.

Rather than give widespread training and maintain them properly they've simply binned 95% of their bikes. More switched on organisations could still see the value in cycling and arrange proper training and maintenance programmes, which is what I've been doing this last few years.

I don't think in Holland postmen will get training and without any doubt the post won't face the same hassle. It will have to do with another position of the bicycle and that sueing everybody isn't as much part of our culture as in anglosaksian countries.

I am wondering: who is going to pay for all those vans?!

Privatisation is around the corner.

After that it could be miles to your nearest post office, £2 for a 1st Class letter that will take a week to arrive if it gets there at all. They've already hiked the parcel prices in preparation.

Gas, Electric, Water, Rail more of the same. They used to be 'public services', now its all about profit for shareholders and stuff any kind of service.

In Holland post is private

Postman was once a respected job, now it terribly sucks. They were all laid off and remplaced by cheaper staff. Staff on flexible contracts for a couple hours a week. All post offices shut. There are now only shops in a shop. Prices went up, quality went down. From one day the other I wasn't able to sent my frames abroad. They only do the most profitable now.