Mailbox location on a rural road

[JethroB]

Hello all,

After years of having a rented PO box in town at the post office I am considering rural delivery. My concern is where is best to place the roadside mailbox in relation to my unpaved driveway so the carrier/mailman does not create ruts or potholes across my drive. I am on a paved county road with no curb. The post & box will be on my side of the road and I own several hundred feet on either side of my driveway. From looking at neighbors boxes and muddy trenches it appears putting it about 20 feet before he reaches my drive would be best. (He seems to have a long incoming glide path and a short exit path ). Thoughts?

 

[stevewarner1957]

If you go to your local post office they can provide you the specs for mailbox turnouts along with the offset for the box and it’s height.

 

[TheMan419]

Every box I see in our area is past the drive not before it. I do not know if that is some kind of requirement or just "the way things are done in these parts" kind of an answer. Since you do not have snow plows to worry about where you are that takes one concern off the table.

 

[jaxs]

Put your box 4 feet past your neighbor's box. The neighbor has 4 extra feet of rut,you have none and make's it much easier for carrier to mix up your mail. It also make's it convenuent to peek at one another's mail while picking up your own.

 

[oosik]

I've always had rural delivery. My mail box is 30 feet off the the side of the paved county road. I've graveled the heck out of the approach/exit. It's taken a couple years but now the access is rock hard and not affected by spring rains. It gives the mailman a place to pull off and not block traffic. It's an easy area to plow off the snow.

 

[Oaktree]

Every box I see in our area is past the drive not before it. I do not know if that is some kind of requirement or just "the way things are done in these parts" kind of an answer. Since you do not have snow plows to worry about where you are that takes one concern off the table.

Must be just local custom. Everywhere I've lived the box was before the driveway, and just looking at neighbors it seems to be about 50/50. If the post office cared they'd say something.
Plowing is an issue here, but it doesn't really make much difference as far as that goes.

To the OP: why would you want to put your mailbox 20' away from the driveway? Don't see that it gains you anything, and it's further to walk to get the mail. I've never had any ruts caused by the mailman.

 

[Deere Dude]

I would put the box where you can drive to it easily and enter your driveway without backing up.

 

[Cycledude]

I live on a rural paved road and it’s at the end of the mail route so the mail person does a u turn using my driveway, no problem with my driveway but the shoulder on the other side keeps getting dished out from the mail vehicle front tire, I fill it in with about a 5 gallon bucket of gravel a couple times per year hoping to help prevent blacktop damage.

 

[MF243RedTop]

I spread gravel over the area and mixed in several bags of quickrete from box store.. nice level hard surface to pull in and out of.
Mines just 20 feet in front of drive on my side
Pull up check mail... Turn into drive.

 

[MossRoad]

All the mailboxes are on one side of the road here. It's located either before or after your driveway on the box side of the road, and it's located as directly as possible across the road from your driveway if you live on the non-box side of the road. So pretty much everyone who lives on the mailbox side of the road gets visitors looking for the people that live across the street, because their mailbox is probably directly in front of your front door.

Also, at one time or another, most of the people on the non-box side of the road will back out across the road and run their own mailbox over. :laughing: