ROYAL Mail bosses were branded draconian yesterday after sacking three postmen in a week – for not wearing cycle helmets. They were accused of adhering rigidly to guidelines to cut staff and slash costs ahead of privatisation. Many others also face disciplinary action following the clampdown in Southport, Merseyside. Several have launched an appeal to be re-instated. Father-of-two David Smith was dismissed after 17 years.
Southport Lib Dem MP John Pugh believes the posties have been treated unfairly:
The only one at risk for not wearing a helmet is the postman himself – so why is the Royal Mail threatening disciplinary action?”
A Royal Mail spokesman blandly averred: “We take the safety of employees very seriously.”
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They’re going to claim it’s setting a bad example for the public, which is bad for their corporate image. Not going to win this one. Better be careful it doesn’t backfire.
In New Zealand, where I’m from, wearing a helmet while cycling is compulsory.
Chris
The evidence on cycle helmets is very mixed. It isn’t even clear that they make the cyclist any safer.
Where cycle helmets are compulsory, fewer people cycle (on the figures I’ve seen, anyway).
Forcing posties to wear cycle helmets makes absolutely no sense.
thanks for your input Chris.
Excuse me for not giving a damn.
“The only one at risk for not wearing a helmet is the postman himself – so why is the Royal Mail threatening disciplinary action?”
That’s a bit silly. If one of them dies while working without a cycle helmet it’s a 10 to 1 chance their family would sue the Royal Mail for not enforcing their own safety guidelines rigidly. That’s just the sort of country we live in nowadays.
Whatever you think about cycle helmets, if it is a rule set by the company you work for you follow it… or you leave. It’s pretty standard stuff really.
Worth remembering that the Royal Mail are now required to issue cycle helmets to them (that requirement being the solitary achievement of Parmjit Dhanda in eight years in parliament) in which case not requiring them to wear them once issued would be fairly odd.
The evidence is that if you wear a helmet, you are more likely to get knocked off because other vehicles give you less space (see work by researchers at the University of Bath – who found you were safest wearing a blond wig). Good luck to these posties!
Nowhere with a helmet law or massive increase in wearing due to an advertising campaign has been able to show any reduction in risk. Yes, cycling deaths fall, but the number of cyclists falls by more, so the risk actually increases. Including New Zealand Chris, but don’t be ashamed about being gullible, lots of people believe that helmets are effective, but not the ones who’ve looked at the evidence.
The Royal Mail introduced the helmet rule, with the support of the union, not as a safety measure, but as a uniform rule for cycling postmen. Before they did so, they commissioned a report about helmets from the Transport Research Laboratory, which they refused to publish. They still haven’t published it. Has any other postmen been dismissed for a uniform rule infringement?
Check out http://www.cyclehelmets.org
I should point out that Managers at Royal Mail can be tken to court and be given a heavy fine for not ensuring that staff wear the appropriate protection.
Stuart : The problem is that a bicycle helmet has been “proven” not to be appropriate protection.
I put proven within brackets because in epidemiology it is hard to really prove things. Also in science in general, other than mathematics it is hard to really prove anything in the strictest sense.
Another problem is that helmets constitute to a large extent “victim blaming” and “after the fact” protection. The appropriate approach is to focus on the party that causes the worst injuries. To cyclists in traffic, car drivers with their dangerous vehicles, clearly bear the brunt of the responsibility.
But yes it is a complex issue. See for intance all the angles taken, and all the references to scientfi studies and critiques of them in the Wikipedia article :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicycle_helmet
What really astounds me is that helmets are made compulsory, and some poor misguided fool even apparently battled to force Royal Mail to issue them to cycling postmen, yet I see no mention of sending them on to a Bikeability Level 3 course or making Cyclecraft compulsory reading nor supply said book free of charge.
Yet Cyclecraft and Bikeability are both existing government sponsored initiatives valid for all who cycle.
What a waste of effort and money.