Posted By Jo Scott Smith
My organisation has started paying mileage allowance to staff who use their own biclycles for work related travel.

What is best safety practice in this area (eg do you insist riders wear safety helmets/reflective clothing - do you provide them?) and does anyone cover this in their road risks or bicycle use policy that they could send me a copy of?

Thanks in anticipation

JO

Posted By Mike Miller
Hi There!

Until recently I was employed by Local Authority who encouraged the use of bicycles. It was part of a green policy to reduce traffic in the towns & cities. They even gave low interest loans to buy bicycles and all the safety equipment that was required. They pay mileage at a very good rate and supply safe dry storage in the car park monitored by security. They even included motorcycles in the deal as they are greener than the car.

The safety equipment, lights, hard hat and knee protectors were not enforced as part of the agreement as it is up to the individual to take responsibility for them. However they did insist on insurance relating to the use and a certificate had to be produced annually.

The reality is that as employers we are not responsible for people travelling to or from work on what ever mode of transport.

Also bicycles are only practical for just that, to & from place of work. Travelling around place to place would be very difficult for all the obvious reasons such as public liability 'theft, etc. and with no where to secure it out side the work premises and not practical in terms of time and effort i.e. two trips and your done in!

It would be helpful for you if someone who is still employed by a LA could let you see a copy of a green policy.


cheers

Mike

Posted By Hilary Charlton
Why don't you check with your regional police headquarters - they use bicycles as part of their work so must be fully up on this.

Hilary

Posted By Robert S Woods
The post office went through all this 2 or 3 years ago as previously suggested you could contact them. The communication workers union represents postal workers and played a large part in forming the post offices policy they may be able to help.

If you don't have any luck get back to me and I'll see if I can pull a few strings.

Bob

Posted By Allan St.John Holt
Jo,

Your email address doesn't function! Could you supply another?

Allan

Posted By Allan St.John Holt
Sylvia,

The Tribual was some weeks ago, and found that RM had correctly applied all proper procedures. The particular circumstances of the case were 'rather special', so perhaps enough said.

In fact the helmet regime was introduced a year ago following commissioned RRL research which showed helmets to be effective in reducing injury severity to riders doing what RM delivery staff do - not the same thing at all as general road use, over which we have no opinion on helmet use. We do have documented evidence to show that the helmets have already saved at least two lives and reduced injury successfully in many more instances.

Allan

Posted By Allan St.John Holt
It's still noble, what do you mean? And the bikes are much better now - they need to be, with all that extra weight to carry.

Just don't get me started on the bad press we're getting. Most organisations would actually be boasting about getting 90% of their deliverables right, but instead we get moaned at.

Here's a thought for you: There are about 450,000 inputs into a black box system, and 27 million outputs, all different. What you pay the cheapest postage rate in the EU to do is to put an item in any one of the inputs (like a postbox) and it comes out at any one of the outputs (like your letterbox) the next day - anywhere in the country - nine times out of ten. I think that's a pretty neat trick. Any other organisation would be patting itself on the back, and expecting plaudits from the public. We have a fantastic bunch of people who make all that happen, who on the whole are pretty teed off about the current press coverage.

And we are doing better on safety (though not good enough). Check out our new CSR report on the Website - we reduced 'all accidents' by 11.3% over the previous year.

Whinge over - I'll get me coat.....

Allan

Posted By Simone Plaut
risk assessment! High Vis is essential here to anyone with half a brain cell.
As a London motorist and cyclist I would not dream of going on a bike without helmet and high vis......especially at dusk or in mist, wet weather when windscreens mist up, and light dances on raindrops on your windshield, mimics a cyclists lights from a neon sign or traffic lights.
Cyclists are invisible. This is dangerous.
I had a student of mine paralysed in a cycling injury at the age of 22. He would be walking today if he had been wearing high Vis kit i suspect.

Posted By Jo Scott Smith
Thank you all for your useful responses

Best wishes

JO

Posted By Ken Taylor
You can get bicycle safety check-lists from RoSPA (0870 777 2227). If it's for use at work there is a strict duty for the bike to be in a safe condition so someone has to be told to check it before each use and to maintain it. PPE is a risk assessment issue but helmets and hard hats are well recognised as reasonable protection these days. Saddle-bags, panniers, etc may also be needed for the job.
If the agreed job description doesn't refer to using a bicycle for work, some reasonable evidence or recorded assertion by the employee that they are a competent cyclist would also be useful - unless they can produce their cycle proficiency certificate!