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When a Bike Company Put a TV on Its Box, Shipping Damages Went Down (2017)

bicycling.com

211–220 of 278 posts

Re: When a Bike Company Put a TV on Its Box, Shipping Damages Went Down (2017)

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shit happens; signs are confusing, drivers make mistakes, cops make mistakes. And that may be a once in a lifetime event for a regular driver, but when you have thousands of drivers parking dozens of times a day, "once in a lifetime" becomes "once a week".

Except very special and rare situations, the driver should be personally liable for a ticket even if on the job. Traffic laws apply to individual drivers and not vehicle owners or contractors.

I have a friend who works as a driver (merchandising, not delivery) and he personally pays for his parking tickets. This is in the UK though, maybe things are different in the US.

Re: When a Bike Company Put a TV on Its Box, Shipping Damages Went Down (2017)

#212
post #98
post #87

Our hard drives for mainframes used to come with glass tube force exceeded indicators and ,'tipped in transit' markers. Five cent gizmos which meant you could refuse to accept or RMA.

Kinda ironic considering how much force a HDD at rest can sustain...let alone tipping.

Hard disks these days are much tougher than the ones used for old school mainframes, or for that matter just old school hard disks. Back in the day there was a command to park the drive heads so they wouldn’t bounce around during transit.

Re: When a Bike Company Put a TV on Its Box, Shipping Damages Went Down (2017)

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the drivers are basically incentivized to break the law When a delivery company has a line item in its budget to cover parking tickets as a cost of doing business, it's already decided at the corporate level to disregard the law in favor of making a profit.

I remember how a few years ago a company paid a speeding ticket for one of the workers, and was promptly fined itself for contempt of court. Judge summoned the manager who approved the expense to court, gave him an earful, and told them in no uncertain terms that if they tried that again, contempt of court fines would go up until they stopped this. The ideas was the whole point of the ticket was to punish the driver,…

How the fuck can you expect people to drive 8 hours a day, 5 days a week and never get a fine?

Re: When a Bike Company Put a TV on Its Box, Shipping Damages Went Down (2017)

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a matter of "things you think are wrong", it's illegal activity. As a cyclist, they are breaking the rules, invading my space, and putting my life at risk by forcing me into car traffic, just to save a few seconds.

And you’ve never rolled through a stop sign?

No, I haven't.

Re: When a Bike Company Put a TV on Its Box, Shipping Damages Went Down (2017)

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember how a few years ago a company paid a speeding ticket for one of the workers, and was promptly fined itself for contempt of court. Judge summoned the manager who approved the expense to court, gave him an earful, and told them in no uncertain terms that if they tried that again, contempt of court fines would go up until they stopped this. The ideas was the whole point of the ticket was to punish the driver,…

How the fuck can you expect people to drive 8 hours a day, 5 days a week and never get a fine?

The people writing, enforcing and interpreting the laws don't care if the law is unfair or impossible to reasonably comply with. That is miles outside the scope of what they do.

Laws that penalize behavior that normal people frequently engage in don't get changed until the people who write the laws get bitten by them (which rarely happens for reasons outside the scope of this comment).

Re: When a Bike Company Put a TV on Its Box, Shipping Damages Went Down (2017)

#216
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of thing weirds me out to be honest. I've had this kind of conversation with serious cyclists before where I've been told that it's impossible for cyclists to ride on the footpath in places because the uneven cement slabs would damage {some part of the bike I don't remember or care}. You're here telling me that a 2mm twist in part of the frame is a serious problem for attaching the rear wheel, and that it w…

It's quite hard to damage a dropout with the wheels mounted if not by way of a major crash. But the rear triangle of a bike remains pretty weak in shipping as the rear axle is not in place.

Isn't that something that could be solved by shipping it with a 50c piece of metal between the bars during shipping as a surrogate for the wheel axle? Given the list prices, seems like they could stretch to that, and it'd be more reliable than hoping the delivery man will be more gentle because he thinks it's a TV box.

Re: When a Bike Company Put a TV on Its Box, Shipping Damages Went Down (2017)

#217

I've always been curious about the shipping process. I have met or know 7 people who work/worked at the shipping hub in my city. I always ask them how the packages are handled. Every one of them said that they (and all of their coworkers) handle all packages on a scale ranging from rough to purposefully damaging. One guy told me how he targets boxes marked Fragile for extra abuse when he's exhausted/angry/having a ba…

This does not surprise me much. I think it comes down to incentives. The package handlers only have a certain amount of time per package. There are few if any consequences for being rough, and it saves time, so of course the package handlers end up being rough. This isn't the only time you see this sort of selfish behavior from delivery companies. As a cyclist I commonly encounter delivery trucks parked in the bike l…

I guarantee more cyclists break the law than delivery drivers. Would you suggest I immediately pull my truck in front of every cyclist I see blow through a stop sign?

Re: When a Bike Company Put a TV on Its Box, Shipping Damages Went Down (2017)

#218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just don't try this trick if sending things overseas. The recipient won't appreciate the customs bill (20% in the UK).

You can put any value on the parcel and it won't matter in the slightest. You can declare the value to be $1M and it has no bearing on the final customs charge paid. Chinese shops have been sending everything declared as "gift" with $1 value and customs officials don't give a shit - the parcel is opened and the official makes an assessment on the worth of the item - if it roughly matches what the shipping document sa…

You are completely wrong. Customs officials in most countries do not open packages, they use the customs sticker declared value. (Source: I actually receive international packages regularly. I've had one opened package.)

The courier/post office will generally validate that that sticker matches the value you told them for insurance purposes either way.

Re: When a Bike Company Put a TV on Its Box, Shipping Damages Went Down (2017)

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a crowded urban neighborhood, there is not going to be anywhere for a delivery vehicle to legally stop. Unless the delivery company refuses to service the area, it’s going to do some double parking. Downtowns address this problem with yellow commercial loading zones but those don’t really exist in residential neighborhoods.

The companies could also hire a second person to actually run the deliveries inside while the driver makes sure not to block traffic. It'll cost more than the current situation, sure, but it is an option.

This happens during busy times of year, like Christmas.

Re: When a Bike Company Put a TV on Its Box, Shipping Damages Went Down (2017)

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and why don't depressed people just cheer up? Seriously it's not hard...

I think we can all agree this is something completely different.

Which element of each do you think is being compared?
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