donaldj
Bronze Member
When I was much younger and worked in my town's Parks and Rec, there was an old timer (nicknamed Shorty). He had a problem with kids knocking over his mailbox. He then made a nearly indestructible one, but a car plowed into it (accident) and it did very serious damage. The USPS said the mailbox post had to be able to break away in this case.
Merging these two design requirements, he made a hole in the ground and sunk a section of very thick metal chain into it and filled it with cement so that about 4 feet of chain was coming out. He then put a post with a Rubbermaid mailbox in a 5 gallon bucket, filled the bucket with cement, and attached it to the chain.
This way, the mailbox itself was cheaply replaceable, the bucket with cement allowed it to stay standing upright, it broke away per the post office's requirement (a vehicle hitting it would just knock it over), and running it over tore the **** out of the underside of the truck that was maliciously hitting it.
Merging these two design requirements, he made a hole in the ground and sunk a section of very thick metal chain into it and filled it with cement so that about 4 feet of chain was coming out. He then put a post with a Rubbermaid mailbox in a 5 gallon bucket, filled the bucket with cement, and attached it to the chain.
This way, the mailbox itself was cheaply replaceable, the bucket with cement allowed it to stay standing upright, it broke away per the post office's requirement (a vehicle hitting it would just knock it over), and running it over tore the **** out of the underside of the truck that was maliciously hitting it.