Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/11/14/bicycles-shipped-in-fake-flats.html
…
3 Likes
That explains allot actually. So many levels at play here.
8 Likes
The city isn’t the only thing this company is outsmarting.
4 Likes
I sense there is a sort of Red Queen evolutionary strategy going on here. As more and more less fragile items like bicycles are shipped in boxes mimicking more fragile items like TVs, the shipping services will begin to treat boxes that look like TVs no differently than other boxes. Which will force the bicycle sellers to start mimicking even more fragile items like plate glass windows…
1 Like
why? Is the theory that there is a limited quantity of caring that shipping services have, and these few thousand bikes will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, making the 200 million tv’s sold each year suffer the consequences?
4 Likes
The whole idea that the TV-mimicking boxes gives better treatment presupposes that there is indeed a limited quantity of caring (or at least a limited number of packages that can be treated with care; otherwise all packages would be treated equally). Whether the number of false TVs is enough to affect shipping behavior towards TVs is another question. Although the article claims that the practice has spread beyond the initial seller, so it isn’t out of the question that it will become sufficiently common.
2 Likes
This is a wild premise to me. My armchair analysis is that people doing physical work will always expend as little effort to do so as reasonably possible. Extending care toward heavy items takes more effort. So they will only extend care towards the most valuable/perceived-as-fragile items. I’d wager the disparity in treatment isn’t due to limited resources, but biases and/or lack of familiarity by the handlers. Every adult I know owns a TV and uses it regularly, maybe 5% of the adults I know own a bike worth more than $400 and use it regularly.
6 Likes
I thought that TV I ordered looked a little weird.
5 Likes
Label them organs for transplant to get them delivered faster.
1 Like
I’m with you, but with a different theory : it’s just good old rage against bikes. I don’t know about where you live, but here in North America we have people who hate bikes (and bikers) with a passion. Those darn bikers taking up car lanes and proving to the world that we don’t need cars! The horror! (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
Haven’t seen as much hate for TVs which, as we all know, are as American as apple pie) 
12 Likes
Big time. As an educated white straight cis male, I can only experience oppression by riding my bike.
11 Likes
Those damn cyclists probably don’t even own TVs. I hear they go outside and do exercise for fun. And I don’t mean throwing a ball around like good red-blooded Americans! 
I relate to that, and I also feel that my experience riding a bike has helped me empathize with people who experience oppression, but of course we have to remember that we have the privilege of being only temporarily cyclists. We choose to get on a bike, and if the verbal abuse, death threats, and physical violence from motorists and inferior treatment from law enforcement become too much to bear, we have the option to just stop riding.
I found this article relevant:
8 Likes
I think what it shows is that package handlers know how to properly handle and load a TV (don’t lay it flat and stack stuff on top of it) but don’t have the same knowledge re bikes.
I say this as somebody who has worked loading trucks for FedEx ground, and also worked as a bike mechanic where my duties included packing / unpacking bikes for shipping (via FedEx ground).
8 Likes
Its just as plausible to me, that the workers who handle these boxes do not ride bicycle to work, and probably view them as toys, with the same disdain shown to bicyclists on the road. This hostility shows up in especially agressive handling during shipment.
It would be interesting to see a study that would compare these two hypotheses, and see which one is less likely true.
2 Likes
It looks better if you pedal faster!
3 Likes
Have you seen these VanMoof bikes? Holeeee crap! Bike porn!
My experience: have shipped four bicycles via UPS with no problems. Shipped one flat screen TV with them and it arrived cracked. UPS did enough scamming on the insurance I paid for that I gave up on getting back the 600 bucks I lost.
I think we need more data to draw and solid conclusions. Does any TV manufacturer out there want to start packaging their TVs in boxes labeled to look like bicycles and report back?
1 Like
My intuitive (i.e probably wrong) thought would be that a bike could handle more rough handling than a TV. Package handlers holding this misconception could easily lead to these kinds of results.
2 Likes
Having worked as a FedEx loader, I’d actually say the people I worked with had a bit more respect for riders than the average; I wasn’t the only one biking to work, though was the only one doing so on a performance oriented bike. I used to race against the truck drivers…
And nobody had time, energy, or interest in “especially aggressive handling” of any package. Damage was almost always the result of laziness or mechanical process.
1 Like
