Mailbox Security The Homemade Way

[bcp]

The more visible you make your mailbox, the more likely it will be hit.

Target Fixation: Something Worth Looking At!

Utah Bike Law | Your Motorcycle Accident Lawyer George Tait | Salt Lake City Utah - Target Fixation & Motorcycle Crashes

 

[ruffdog]

Maybe it is just a few select customers they react to.

 

[crazyal]

The more visible you make your mailbox, the more likely it will be hit.

Target Fixation: Something Worth Looking At!

Utah Bike Law | Your Motorcycle Accident Lawyer George Tait | Salt Lake City Utah - Target Fixation & Motorcycle Crashes

It's like a parking lot with one car in it that gets ran into.

 

[BIG DOOLEY]

Target fixation- bad news
You do have to prepare, and not fixate on objects.
When I did have my motorcycle I spent the majority of the ride planning the next what if situation.
Saved my butt so many times.
It honestly took the fun out of riding and I sold my Harley this summer after 7 years of riding.
2 Serious close calls averted by thinking ahead "what to do" before it happened.
One of them I hit the the trunk lid of a car that swerved out of traffic in front of me and stopped on a 45 mph road.
5 lane road and 1 mile of open lane in front of me. I left a stop light and was in the far right lane along the curb.
The other lane was filled bumper to bumper with cars waiting to move left against on coming traffic to get into the fair grounds.
I was only doing 25 mph waiting for the moment to happen. "what if someone pulls into this open lane in front of me".
It looked like a 1 mile long gauntlet.
Then it happened ,someone decided not to go to the fairgrounds.
The car pulled out of stopped traffic into my lane and stopped.
I slid the bike sideways and was trying not to lay the bike down but momentum high centered me and I stopped without hitting the car with the bike but my body slammed into the car. Boy was I glad I did not to speed up to 45 mph.
The young girl looked out her back window and floored the throttle and went over a curb and thru a Burger King parking dodging other cars in the lot to run away.
It's much easier to relax driving my big dooley.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Let me tell you a little story! Few years ago I got a really good deal on some ESAB Atom Arc 7018 off ebay. Got a pink card in my P.O. Box when I went to the front desk I told the 6'-4 275-pound clerk that if the package was heavy please be very careful with it! As he was walking from the back I could hear him whining like a little school girl. When he got to the counter he slams the 50-pound box of 7018 on it! I just cringed. I walked off while shaking the box, rattle rattle. I stopped at a table still inside the room, took my pocket knife out and opened the box, a good 1/3 to 1/2 of the rods were broken! I looked up and he was watching me. I said what part of be careful you didn't understand?! He took one step back looked to his right and said I have a disgruntled customer out here. The post master came into sight, and said get out! Get out now! And kept yelling, would not listen to my side of the story. Well working my whole life on the water front, I'm not real big on being yelled at, or told what to do. So I'm not going anywhere. The post master calls the city police. 2 cop cars show up, one cop takes me aside to get my story, the other talks to the post master and clerk. The cop that was talking to me talks to the other cop then to the post office people. Comes back to me and says do you have Internet access? I replied yes. He says you need to go on line and file a complaint about this. 20-minutes after I hit the send button my telephone is ringing. Huh imagine that the Post Office's regional office in Seattle calling. The woman wants to hear my side of the story. When I finish she says that is not the same story the post master just told me. Again imagine that! I told her to pick a time, and date that we can all meet at the post office. She asked why, I said so we can all view the security cameras together. Boy did her attitude change! See why I have no love for those ?

Sorry to hear about your experience. Mine on the other hand has been nothing but positive. I needed to ship an Ubuntublox block to India. UPS and FedEx were in the multiple hundreds of dollars, package weighed less than three pounds btw. UPS suggested I go to the Post Office, $65.00 with insurance and it arrived on time too.

When I was in Haiti my wife had to send a package to me. She went to the Post Office and once again, big package, it arrived on time. There was another bonus, FedEx is notorious for not informing, accounting for, etc local taxes in foreign countries. The same day I picked up my package, $27.00 custom's fee a FedEx package arrived for another person staying where I was, $200.00 local fees and taxes, boots, package a third the size of mine and with less claimed value.

We're always taking advantage of their "it fits it ships" deal.

And the local people here in Wylie TX are the greatest to work with. I know I couldn't/wouldn't do their job. I don't have the patience it take to deal with an entitled public.

 

[mjncad]

You may want to think twice about eliminating junk mail. A neighbor delivers mail, she said if it was not for junk mail and magazines, she and others would be out of a job. They were told that next to go is rural routes, and then door to door service, in town. You will have to drive to the post office and pickup your mail, from a box you have to rent. This has already happened to many small towns. Your choice, you are just speeding up the future loss of free mail service, and many more jobs.

First, the mail service is not FREE, we pay for it via the postage we pay, and any tax dollar subsidies Uncle Sugar sends to the USPS. A good friend of mine's brother works for the USPS and my friend won't sign up for the junk mail "do not call list" to protect his brother's job. I understand and respect his reasoning; but quite frankly I'm tired of the junk mail. I don't want it, I'm tired of sorting through it to make sure the local USPS inDUHvidual didn't hide something important in it. Junk mail is a waste of resources on numerous levels. I do as much as possible electronically now. Although the USPS is probably still the best in the world, it has become a bloated, union infested entity that needs a good overhaul. Good luck expecting that to happen since it's a Gummint entity needing Congressional approval on various aspects of how they run their operation. I do use Priority Mail package shipping as it's cheaper than UPS and FedMex; but that's only because tax dollars subsidize it. All those "FREE" Priority Mail shipping supplies you can get from the USPS are paid for by J.Q. Taxpayer.

I already do that, about 6-miles to town.
I have real heart burn with my local post office!:thumbdown: In my opinion people who work for the post office, are to lazy to work, and to chicken **** to steal for a living! :mischievous:
Again, just my opinion!

Wow, you need to come to our post office. I find them amazing at doing a job I could never do. And, this is a huge and, I have found the USPS the best at delivery and price, even internationally. They have really impressed me the last couple of years.

Our mail service at our current home is the worst I've ever experienced in my life. I've received other people's prescriptions, gotten more misdirected mail meant for other people than I can shake a stick at, have seen more Postmasters go through the local branch that they should install a revolving door. Any time we get a decent carrier who actually cares about the quality of work they do; they get bumped off the route by someone else with greater seniority who doesn't give a ****. Right now we're lucky to have a decent carrier who drives a genuine (delapidated) USPS vehicle. In the past I've seen USPS rural carriers drive their personal vehicles from the passenger's seat. Yeah, that's real safe. The best rural carrier we had actually purchased a right-hand drive Gooberu (Subaru) wagon to do her job better and safer. She was bumped off our route due to union seniority rules.

IThe young girl looked out her back window and floored the throttle and went over a curb and thru a Burger King parking dodging other cars in the lot to run away.

Did her last name end in a "A" or a "Z?"



As far as a breakaway mailbox post; the OP could use a couple of weld-neck flanges to make the breakaway joint. I'm sure some sort of creative modification can be done to the fasteners to prevent thieves from unbolting the mailbox using common tools.

 

[bcp]

They are going broke funding the retirement of USPS workers not even born yet.

They have 10 years to prefund retirement benefits for the next 75 years, by order of Congress.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/04/26/3198960/the-real-culprit-in-the-postal.html

 

[two_bit_score]

Thanks.
I am a firm believer of doing things safely.
Bolts just leave a gap for theives.
Thats why it is bolted from the inside.
The inner bolts could receive relief cuts also to add a safety factor without compromising security.
After all it is a security box.
Agressive relief cuts stop thieves and add the margin for safety.

That's a fantastic mailbox!

I'm not to sure all mailbox locations are treated the same by the 'highway dept.'

I have two residential houses in one town. One is on a state highway inside the city limits. It had a standard mailbox that was on a wooden post that had been there for years and years. One day TxDOT came by and replaced the whole post and mailbox with a plastic box on a breakaway post.

The other house is on a city street. It has a standard metal mailbox on a metal post that has been there years and years and it was never replaced by TxDOT. On that street almost everyone has a different kind of mailbox and post.

By the way, the speed limit on both roadways is the same.

I have another house in another city in a neighborhood where every house has individual mailboxes like the assortment you posted earlier. Some plain, standard ones, others elaborate brick, stone reinforced steel, etc.

It may not be a bad idea to make it a break-away post just out of an abundance of caution but if you are in a residential area and not on a state highway I really doubt you would have any problem with that mailbox.

Again, nice looking work. Thanks for posting.

 

[BIG DOOLEY]

Originally Posted by BIG DOOLEY

The young girl looked out her back window and floored the throttle and went over a curb and thru a Burger King parking lot dodging other cars in the lot to run away.
Did her last name end in a "A" or a "Z?"

Forgive me but I don't get the A-Z
I'm sure there is a joke in there but i'm slow witted.
You have to explain this to me in redneck terms
slowly please

As far as a breakaway mailbox post; the OP could use a couple of weld-neck flanges to make the breakaway joint. I'm sure some sort of creative modification can be done to the fasteners to prevent thieves from unbolting the mailbox using common tools.

Using bolts and tacking them with welds so they could not be turned/ but the flanges would be expensive and bulky. I think the same effect without flanges (cutting or scoring)and repairing the same way in the event of a hit will work inexpesively.

you are in a residential area and not on a state highway I really doubt you would have any problem with that mailbox.

My corner lot on the 25 mph road (w/stop sign) ends in front of my house. There is an intersection on both sides of my property so speed is never an issue. A stop sign a few feet away and a left turn on to a one lane gravel road.We rarely have any traffic on the road do to my location. Mostly 3 neighbors on the private gravel road.

 

[woodyacres]

Our mailboxes get hit several times a year. We have 9 all lined up at the end of our sub street and the kids treat it as a free for all! We asked the PO if we could move them off the street, just inside our street and they said, No. Then the driver would have to put her car in reverse to turn around and it would put unnecessary mileage on their car. Really? Most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. We just bend and try and straighten it back out. Most of the boxes cannot even be closed, but I refuse to buy a new mailbox every 2 months.