Bus incident update...

Another Puncture on the way home last night! I'll be doing something about it, what I don't know yet later on in the week. New tyres, maybe slime, maybe gunk for the tubes, maybe everything!

Other than that the ride home along the cut and NCR5 was great.

Stats here:
Started: 28 Jun 2010 15:03:36
Ride Time: 1:21:35
Stopped Time: 0:00
Distance: 16.34 miles
Average: 10.81 miles/hr
Fastest Speed: 18.82 miles/hr
Climb: 407 feet
Calories: 1024

I came in on my road bike this morning due to the puncture situation on my Ridgeback! It was also an opportunity to give the Raceguards a test. A win! My bike is now quiet again and I even had a bit of rain to test the dryness of them. No wet arse so they must have worked!

Stats here:
Started: 29 Jun 2010 05:35:52
Ride Time: 35:31
Stopped Time: 0:00
Distance: 11.78 miles
Average: 17.52 miles/hr
Fastest Speed: 33.06 miles/hr
Climb: 157 feet
Calories: 605

Some of you may remember this post from last week.

http://massivemtber.blogspot.com/2010/06/new-week-same-old-same-old.html

I hope you did see it as of all the incidents I've had this was the one that spooked me the most, so much so I contacted the Bus Company involved and complained about it. I have never done anything like that before I hasten to add.

Below is the chain of emails, have a read.

Dear Sir,


I am emailing to inform you of an incident yesterday, 21st of June 2010 around 1520hrs at Stonehouse Lane, Weoley Castle/Woodgate Valley involving your vehicle L207 YAG.



I think this footage of the incident is worth more than a lengthy description.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IW7IlZFamCo


Although the footage of the next incident doesn’t come out due to my distance away, the driver then jumped the red light to turn left into Jiggins Lane, which was when I realised where he was going and it was on my route. As you can imagine I was quite keen to discuss the incident with him. I also have that discussion on video which I’ll keep to myself for the moment.



Suffice it to say he denied all knowledge of the incident, said he hadn’t seen me which his bizarre left indication to “pull in front of me” disproves and point blank refused to apologise, although I hadn’t asked for one.



I have a wife and 2 young children at home and although I commute every day by push bike I would quite like to get home to them safe and sound every day, the actions of this driver do seem to be lessening my chances.



It is also ironic that you use Green quite openly in your branding and your driver seemed intent on taking out the only true green form of wheeled transport. I’m not an environmental Nazi by the way, just pointing out the irony.



And please don’t point out the difficulties of driving large vehicles, I used to drive double deckers for TWM and drive Class 1 lorries. I know about driving larger vehicles and this drivers actions were unacceptable.



I would like to be informed of any action you intend to take and evidence you’ve actually done it would be nice too. I also know how these things “work”.



Just for info I do not know how to adjust the date time stamp on my helmet cam, but as you can see it is clearly not the 15th of January.



Kind regards


Clive Chapman

Their reply:

Good morning Mr Chapman



I hope you are well




Re : Stonehouse Lane incident 21.06.2010




Thank you for your email

We shall investigate this incident thoroughly and report back to you shortly.





Thank you again


Kind regards



Simon Patchell

Operations and Customer Service Officer

The Green Bus


t: 0845 234 2222

f: 0121 643 6230

w: http://www.thegreenbus.co.uk/

e: simon.patchell@thegreenbus.co.uk

I waited for a while and got this:

Good morning Mr Chapman


Thank you for your email of 22.06.2010



Re : The Green Bus - Alleged Stonehouse Lane incident 21.06.2010



Following the alleged incident described below I have reported your concerns to the company’s Health and Safety Manager.


He will undertake a comprehensive professional assessment of the driver’s driving and will take any necessary action.


Furthermore, the company’s Human Resources Manager has arranged to discuss the matter you have reported with the driver concerned.


I will keep you fully informed regarding the outcome of our investigations.






Thank you again



Kind regards



Simon Patchell


Operations and Customer Service Officer


The Green Bus

I replied:

Thank you for your email.



I particularly enjoyed the “alleged” addition to the email title. I assure you my computerised graphics manipulation isn’t any good, so I am struggling to see what’s “alleged” in the video. I do admire your sense of humour.



Onto the meat of your email.



I also actually fail to see the relevance of assessing the driver’s capabilities. Being a professional driver he’ll be more than aux fait with the Highway Code and will also be more than capable of passing any driving assessment you may give him. But then of course you already know that.



I’m sure you have to be seen to be following your processes, but I am not satisfied with your plan, or any likely actions or outcome given your stated processes.



I’ll await the results, but please be assured, I am willing to take this much further if I believe you have fobbed me off.



More and more people are cycling now for various reasons and they quite naturally are amongst the most vulnerable road users, a total disregard for their safety, or even their presence as displayed by your driver should not happen, next time it might be a child on a bike he fails to “see” or acknowledge, and they might not be as lucky as I was.



You brand yourselves “Green”, I especially like the Sunflowers on your website, nice touch that (but given the age of your vehicles that branding is quite amusing by the way) so I imagine having various cycling groups protesting about your driver’s actions with all of the accompanying press that I have access to and with the video evidence being all over the internet wouldn’t be doing you or your companies image any favours what so ever. We do live in a very competitive recession filled time at the moment.



Regards


Clive Chapman

They then waded in with the big guns, the head honcho himself. Not my description by the way, that's straight off their website.

Dear Mr Chapman

Thank you for your email to Simon Patchell. I am now dealing with this matter.



You have made an allegation of sub-standard driving in relation to one of our drivers. The company has responded appropriately to your allegation and has concluded its investigation into the matters you raise.


We are grateful to you for taking the time and trouble to contact us; but I am afraid that the company will not enter into any further dialogue with you regarding our actions from this point onwards. As you will appreciate from your long experience and expertise, matters between employers and employees must remain strictly confidential.



Kind regards


Ian Mack

Managing Director

The Green Bus



t: 0845 234 2222

f: 0121 643 6230

w: http://www.thegreenbus.co.uk/

e: ian.mack@thegreenbus.co.uk


p: The Green Transport Company Limited, 111 New Street, Birmingham B2 4EU

I followed up with this:

Unfortunately over the years, this is the kind of hiding behind regulations that I have come to expect, and also unfortunately due to early senility my mind reading abilities have diminished too. So I have no way to establish your true motives.

If you have no intention of informing me of the actions you are taking (none as I suspect) then I have no way of knowing if you take road safety seriously other than hiding behind BS whatevers or ISO whatevers, which as we all know are paper/ tick box excercises that you can point to, to those who are clueless or easily impressed.



I would like to know what you intend to do or have done other than engage me in emails at a suitable time scale to infer an investigation.



If I am not satisfied, or not informed of your actions, which common courtesy and politeness would say is reasonable considering your driver nearly killed me, then I will publicise this incident in all of the local press (Which due to the nature of my industry I have very good access to and good relations with) and various internet and cycling organisations that I have access to and contribute to.



I have already emailed the Youtube link to the West Midlands Police Road safety advisory team by the way and I’ve already noticed the footage has already appeared on a very high traffic National website relating to bad driving, which I didn’t put there by the way.



I think, (wrong) I know, that if our roles were reversed I would be absolutely certain you would want to know what I was doing to ensure that such a breach of road safety was investigated thoroughly and what steps I was taking to prevent such things happening again.



Your companies attitude towards this lead to a quite natural distrust of your motives, imply a cover up and a determination to ignore what is the most basic of duties for a Public Service Bus Company. That of taking road safety seriously.



Words mean nothing, they are hollow, easily typed, I need to see evidence that this isn’t an under the carpet job as I suspect it is.



You’ve just effectively said to me, we might do something now go away. Again, what if our roles were reversed?



I’m not asking for anything unreasonable. It’s you who’ve just upped the stakes and in all honesty I have got nothing to lose here.




Regards

Clive Chapman

And that ladies and gentlemen is where it was left as of last Thursday. The Bus Company obviously isn't going to contact me again like they said.

That's that then.