Bloody bikes

[T42]

Congrats!  Have fun. 

[Butterfly]

This is so totally awesome 

[Torslanda]

Woo! Do you get blue lights n'evryfink...? 

Not jealous. Oh no, not at all.

[Charlotte]

Cool. Will they let you do it on the Penny?

Ha, probably not.  Although SERV is currently trialing the Honda XADV 750cc DCT transmission, Adventure Scooter for London drops which looks like it might be just the job for traffic jamming our way through the city:

https://www.facebook.com/SERVSurreySouthLondon/posts/1694571887248094

Woo! Do you get blue lights n'evryfink...? 

Not jealous. Oh no, not at all.

Like most groups, all our marked bikes have blues and twos. Unlike most groups, we don’t use ‘em in central London traffic because they’re very often counterproductive for bikes. SERV usually operates at night and *most* of our deliveries aren’t so time sensitive that woowoos are necessary. Unless someone’s actually bleeding out (and they don’t tell us that when we’re dispatched) minutes don’t count as hard as they do for paramedics. We just ride our ride and go smoothly. For the most part, if you go in with Bs&2s blazing, people behave erratically. It’s actually easier (and shitloads safer) to just filter past as and when you can. We still get there faster than anyone else does

[Cudzoziemiec]

  Extremely excellent. 

[Zipperhead]

Congratulations Charlotte, I am in awe of your skills.



Any chance of a home delivery?

[matthew]

Well done Charlotte.

Which group are you riding with. My father is a Serv S&SL controller / driver and has been for 30+ years.

ETA: doh! I should have read your earlier response. I look forward to seeing "3am Collingdale to St Thomas's Charlotte was closest so she got the call" in Geoff's log.

[Tim Hall]

This is very good. If you get to do pick ups from St Georges, Tooting, you might be taking part of me.

[Aidan]

 

[matthew]

SERV S&SL is predominantly from Tooting, Going to Guildford, Redhill, Frimley, Chertsey, Central London (Guy's and St Thomas's) etc. but they also have a lot of hand over relays to Serv Kent and Sussex to get products from Tooting out to Medway, Margate, Haywards Heath and further afield. Occasionally there are calls to link up with Freeriders coming in from Wiltshire or Serv OBN who deliver from John Radcliffe at Oxford to Berks, Bucks, Oxon and Northamptonshire.

My father has been involved for a long time, I think his membership number is 5. He is now the second call on the phone if the controller is otherwise engaged and has been riding / driving for as many years as I can remember.

One particularly memorable run was organ from Hospital to Hospital and as he was in a car rather than on a bike he was asked if he could take the surgeon as well!!

[Karla]

By the way, have you ever delivered blood for the US Postal team and are you Moto Woman?

[fuzzy]

Well done Charlotte!

[Deano]

Well done Charlotte

[Pedaldog.]

Nice one Charlotte. I had the FJ1200 and loved the way they ride. I assume the 1300 "Goes up to Eleven"!

[Graeme]

That's frickin awesome! The coolest thing. Congratulations Charlotte.
 

[fuzzy]

Am I the only one who thinks Charlotte looks fecking awesome in a uniform?

[Wowbagger]

Am I the only one who thinks Charlotte looks fecking awesome in a uniform?

She looks even awesomer out of it....

And marvellous stuff, Charlotte!

[Mr Larrington]

Am I the only one who thinks Charlotte looks fecking awesome in a uniform?

No good will come of listening to early Iron Maiden singles, mark my words.

[Martin]

I heard about these many years ago but didn't realise they were still going until they turned up to a local classic car event where they were doing a sterling job of marshalling; in between duties
these days I just see the person with the helmet and the box of blood, not the bike

 thumbsup Charlotte you are a star!

reading up on it it looks like a really well run initiative too that delivers a top service in these days of paperwork and saves the NHS £££££££££££££

[Beardy]

I’m sure there are going to be opportunities to improve the service by privatisation and the introduction of competition to drive the costs down! No one tell Jeremy Rhyming-slang though.

[Charlotte]

I did my first shift on Monday night. Everyone told me that the first call out would be a little nerve racking, as the load we carry is extremely valuable.  You're well prepared in your training and orientation for the responsibility of delivering a job safely and promptly, but you never really know how it'll feel until you strap that box onto your bike and set off into the night with your heart beating just that little bit faster.

My controller sent me to NHSBT Tooting for a run over to King's College Hospital Denmark Hill with a box of blood.  When I arrived for the collection at about ten o'clock, it was a very pleasant surprise to bump into another one of our volunteers who'd popped in on his way back from a different job to see if there was anything worth sticking around for before he returned home.  So to record the occasion (and feed my awful social media habit) I asked him to snap a quick photo:



Thankfully, it was an utterly uneventful job - although I got properly wet. I rolled into home shortly before midnight, sent my 'safe home' text to control, and put the kettle on for a well-earned cuppa.  It was a quiet night with several other bikes on, so when I climbed into my sleeping bag on the sofa (so as not to wake Julian up) I wasn't to know that it was to be my only run of the shift.  Probably for the best as I was working the following day!

I'm on again in two weeks time - another weekday night.  The good think about years of audax, then having a baby is that sleep deprivation gets that little easier to deal with 

[matthew]

Well done, Tooting to Kings is a very sensible first run. Dad's on tonight and I don't think he controls on many Mondays so you may not get tasked by him very often.

The controllers are like the riders and tend to stick to the same nights once a fortnight though I believe their rota is a little less well covered which can result in them appealing for cover more often.

When you bed down on the sofa remember that the controller has to be awake for every call and home safe throughout the night. As you say Audax is good preparation for the sleep debt that can hit the next day.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Excellent! Presumably that's your own bike in the photo? What is it? And when do you get to play with one of their bikes with hi-viz and flashies?

[matthew]

Excellent! Presumably that's your own bike in the photo? What is it? And when do you get to play with one of their bikes with hi-viz and flashies?

Hi vis yes, flashies fitted but not used by the group Charlotte is part of. The unpredictable response of drivers to the flashies is considered too much of a risk to the riders, much better to advanced motorist style progress past them before they even know you are there!!

[Si S]

Top stuff Charlotte 

I’m sure there are going to be opportunities to improve the service by privatisation and the introduction of competition to drive the costs down! No one tell Jeremy Rhyming-slang though.

The meddling has already begun, we used to buy underweight units from NHSBT as a DNA source. Recent cost saving measures mean they no longer screen these for nasties, we (like most companies) won't buy un-screened blood, so instead of these units being a source of revenue they now have to be disposed of at a massive cost since they are hazardous waste cus they're un-screened.