Rural Mail Boxes

[Bird]

Grant, I assume the Post Office has stopped having postmen on foot delivering mail to the door in new additions everywhere, so now the boxes installed in big brick columns at the curb is very common in newer additions in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, in the cities; haven't seen it in rural areas yet.

Bird

 

[GlennT]

Until recently we lived in Wisconsin and had similar problems. When we first moved there I put up a new mailbox. THE VERY NEXT DAY a garbage truck backed over it. Someone with a 2 x 4 totaled the next new box and a cherry bomb did in the third one. I went to our neighborhood blacksmith and had him make a mailbox out of 1/4 inch steel plate. I hung it from a fence post crosspiece cantilevered from a telephone pole post and supported by a piece of log chain. That box was sideswiped by vehicles, hit with 2 x 4s or whatever, attacked with bricks and shot at with a deer rifle. I had to pound it out once or twice and paint it every couple of years, but it served us well for 27 years and is probably still hanging there. Occasionally I wondered what would happen if someone ran into that mailbox and got hurt. What would be the reaction of the insurance company and/or the judge?

 

[MarkV]

Thinking of Glenn's cantilevered mailbox made me wonder if you couldn't make one mounted on a pipe that would allow it to swing when hit. I could see something that had a tight enough sleeve or light wieght shear bolt, so it would not blow in the beeze and still be able to move if you backed into it or someone hit it.

 

[markcg2000]

MarkV,
That's exactly what I've seen. The cantilever is mounted on a 4" section of pipe. The post is a 3" pipe. A cable goes from just behind the box to the top of the 3" post. The 3" is canted towards the road, so gravity keeps it swung to the road. A stop is at the backside of the 3" post so that the cantilever can't swing 360" and smash into the side of the (car,truck,plow,person).

I haven't yet lost my mailbox, but if (when /w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif) I do, that's the setup I'll use.

mark

 

[Bill_in_MI]

I have been angered to no end with the same problems expressed here. But I also worked on a project a number of years back with highway safety engineers at Texas A&M...it was on the hazzards of roadside mailboxes. As already mentioned, you would not believe what damage can happen even a low speeds. I saw more photos than I care to recall of decapatated drivers and passengers. We did some crash testing of even simple structures and I was surprised to see the number of boxes that penetrated the windshield. I am still puzzled that more warnings or citations are not given, but I suppose enforcement would be near impossible. Even so, I would guess the liability issues are very real. As coincidence would have it, some years ago a young girl who was a passenger in a car full of kids was thrown from the car when it was broadsided pulling from a drive adjacent to ours. She actually hit our mailbox and broke the 4x4 wood post! She had serious injuries, but lived. I remember thinking how thankful I was that the post had a few years on it...it wasn't even pressure treated.
Soooo....I'm right there with everyone else when the %_$@ kids pull the kind of crap they do. But, I also am reminded of the innocents as I make, yet again, another repair.

For what it's worth...

 

[Jag]

The place where I move from was always getting the mail boxes ball batted. It was on a busy country road. I changed my mail box to a black one that was hard to see at night with red lettering. The neighbor with the bright metal box had his replaced three times. Our mail boxes were less than 100 feet apart. It was mounted on light gage pipe that was slide into a 1-1/2 inch pipe in the ground. This would let the box spin around. It had gotten hit two or three times with no damange as they never hit solid and only turned around... Also it was safer to get my mail as I could walk up behind it spin it around and get mail without standing on the edge of the road...

 

[bpence]

Glad your son was OK. Interesting about mailboxes, trees, rocks and insurance companies. A few years ago some drunk guy ran off the road in front of our house and plowed his car over our mail box into a small pile of boulders that sit amongst some pine trees about 10' off the road. He bounced between a couple of oak trees before he hit the pile of rocks. They stopped him. Understand, he was more than legally drunk, operating a motor vehicle, and damaged private property. Did I mention he was also a lawyer.

Anyway, he sued (filed a civil suit?) us for having the mail box, trees and rocks too close to the road, or something like that. Wanted $500,000 in damages, lost wages, pain & suffering, etc. We had to hire an attorney as our insurance company just laughed and denied his claim. The case was dismissed, and he had to pay our attorney fees. But what a pain in the rear. I had to miss work, file depositions, pay lawyer fees and then get reimbursed.

I've thought about changing our mailbox set-up to something less solid (my wife worries about someone actually hitting the post)....maybe the cantilevered type someone else here mentioned. Instead, for the time being anyway, I moved a couple of round boulders to protect the post. If they hit one of these at least they'll bounce off instead of hitting the railroad tie post directly.

There aren't any restrictions on mailbox post type, actual mailbox type, or even location where we live. The box has to comply with USPS regs, but that's pretty easy.

Anyway, rural mailboxes are always a topic for discussion out where we live.

Bob Pence

 

[rmacan]

It's to bad that the few and far between times that they actually catch the people who do this they don't prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. Title 18, US code Section 1705 provides for fines of $250,000 and/or 3 years in jail per incident. A few well publicized convictions that cost the perpetrators or their parents that kind of time and money would change a lot of people's views on how much fun this activity is.

 

[bpence]

That would be very cool. I'd love to be able to do that just so I could send a copy to the kid's parents (hopefully they'd care).

My oldest son took down a neighbor's mail box and post a few years ago backing out of another driveway, not too long after he'd gotten his driver's license. Tried to sneak away and not get caught. Only things he forgot.......the dent and paint on the truck bumper that I happened to notice and that neighbors talk to each other. He ended up paying for it himself as well as putting the new box and post in. He was also pretty embarassed about not telling us about it when it happened. Life's lessons.

Bob Pence

 

[Von]

I have lost my mail box twice in the 11 years that I have lived at my house. Both times it was my neighbor who hit it when the road was a sheet of ice from ice storms. All the roads are black ice, and he seems to think that he needs to get somewhere. The last time I made him change the post. It was worth it to watch him freeze his butt in the dead of winter! I have hit it a few times while cutting the lawn, so I like the brake away feature of wood. Since I don't have problems with kids playing mail box baseball I will stick to the wood. Which I'm sure my neighbor will appreciate!