Mail box

[lilranch2001]

My mailbox has been taken out twice - ran over. We are on a straight road with no turns nearby so I don't see how they hit it. I think it is in purpose. I am going to replace it but am wondering the laws and potential liability of making it stronger. I have some ideas that would be darn near I destructible but I don't know if that is a good idea or not. I was thinking maybe 24" heavy wall pipe set 8' or so in the ground with the mailbox inside the pipe and the whole thing filled with concrete.

In 25 years I have lost 5, last winter when the snow plow took mine out yet again (a 6x6 set in 3 feet of concrete, the plow sheared it at ground level), I surrendered and got a PO Box.
All is good now
:thumbsup:

 

[oosik]

Over the 32 years I've been here, the mail box has been smashed four times. Its done by the local college folks as a game. Each time they smash 25-30 mailboxes up/down the county road. It must be a real fun game - standing in the back of a pick-up with a ball bat and whacking mail boxes. All this fun & games came to an abrupt end when a deputy sheriff moved in to an old homestead down the road, put up his mailbox and it got smashed. He installed a remote camera and caught the fellows in the act. Everybody on the road got a new mailbox, mailbox post and letter of apology from the parents of the students involved. It has NEVER happened again.

In our area it is a FEDERAL CRIME to tamper with the mail or mailbox. I would assume this is the same in all areas. However, I would think the deliberate destruction of a mailbox is different than accidentally running over it with a vehicle.

Here the county DOH can provide you with a "mailbox protector". It is a metal deflector that is installed on the down leg side of the mailbox and protects it from the snow thrown by the passing snow plow.

 

[Stimw]

There is a Crack-Head in my neighborhood that likes to run over them.
The guy up the road has a boom truck with an auger, he mounted his on a piece of phone pole set VERY DEEP!
I always wanted to make a post that when hit a piece of metal mounted 90% to the post flips up and damages suspension and or oil pans. Then just follow the trail of oil!

 

[SPIKER]

On of the guys I grew up around had issues his got run over 3 times in as many weeks, so he had a hunk of 3" drill stem ~8' long. He drilled a 12" auger/hole & put that stem into ground & filled it with concrete, welded up a 1/4" plate steel mail box. Then built a wooden 1x box around it that looked like a 4x4 post. About a week later the idiots hit again, they were driving a jeep with a plow on it (summer time) and ran over a dozen mail boxes until they hit his. It bent the post about 45 degrees & flipped the jeep over & it rolled 3 or 4 times. Luckily the kids inside were not killed & he ended up getting sued for the thing. As someone already posted the box & anything within so many feet of the road (speed of road comes into play) has to be break away. If the road is say a community street with speed limit of 25 or 35 then things can be like rocks etc but out in rural 55+ mph roads if someone slides off it can't go thru windshield or (flip the car)...

Mark

 

[bcp]

What's wrong with this picture?

If someone gets hurt while committing a crime, the crime victim is at fault.

I'm not talking about an intentional trap. Maybe I remove a barbed wire fence, but it got dark and I left one wire at the bottom. Trespassing thief trips, breaks a leg. My fault?

 

[dave1949]

What's wrong with this picture?

If someone gets hurt while committing a crime, the crime victim is at fault.

I'm not talking about an intentional trap. Maybe I remove a barbed wire fence, but it got dark and I left one wire at the bottom. Trespassing thief trips, breaks a leg. My fault?

IF you could build an intentionally destroying mailbox as SPIKER described AND guarantee it would only be hit by criminals, .... but you can't. Therein lies part of the problem. The roadside is supposed to provide a reasonably safe area for people making honest mistakes or experiencing mechanical issues.

OTOH the judge should laugh the 'victims' out of court if it could be shown beyond a reasonable doubt that their intent was criminal. But in Catch-22 terms, that could never happen because intentionally destroying mailboxes do not exist legally.

 

[2458n]

Neighbor had the masonary crew come out and build two nice natural stone gate posts. Looked pretty good. He had a remote sliding iron gate that was going to be installed next. Was not more then 25 feet from the edge of road so ODOT had it removed at owners expense. State route main road or nobody would have said anything.

 

[dave1949]

Neighbor had the masonary crew come out and build two nice natural stone gate posts. Looked pretty good. He had a remote sliding iron gate that was going to be installed next. Was not more then 25 feet from the edge of road so ODOT had it removed at owners expense. State route main road or nobody would have said anything.

It's nice, and safer, if a gate is set back far enough that the longest vehicle coming to the property can get all the way off the road without the gate opening.

I have a simple manual swinging steel gate on an old driveway into our lot that is just far enough in that I can pull in with a pickup pulling a 20' equipment trailer and be completely off the road. It came with the property. It happens to be a "blind" driveway on a hill with a curve. I don't think the DOT would even allow that driveway now, but it originated in the horse and buggy days when things moved much slower.

We put in a new drive with good sight lines when we built here. That old one is too scary for those who enjoy living. :laughing:

 

[forgeblast]

My mail box is hit all the time, water trucks coming up and down our hill. What I did was spray it orange and I built an L out of some square tubing. I then welded a hinge on the left side (traffic coming from the right). This is also the way gravity wants to take it. I have it secured in place with a small piece of wire make to break away. It works great. I can hear it at night "ding" when they hit it and the next day i go out and wrap the wire around it again. Easy and it works.

 

[paulharvey]

What's wrong with this picture?

If someone gets hurt while committing a crime, the crime victim is at fault.

I'm not talking about an intentional trap. Maybe I remove a barbed wire fence, but it got dark and I left one wire at the bottom. Trespassing thief trips, breaks a leg. My fault?

Basically it boils down to you creating a hazardous situation knowingly. Everything in the right of way, with in the "clean zone" is supposed to be "crash worthy". Clear zone is a set distance from the edge of travel lane, based on posted speed; 45 mph=14 ft clear zone; 55 mph=18 ft; ect. Crash worthy just means it's been tested to prove it's not a hazard in a crash situation. It's not about the idiot who intentionally runs them over, it's about making sure someone doesn't put a piece of railroad rail, set in concrete, 6" from the road, to kill anyone who runs off the side.

Remember your talking about Public property, you would be allowed to put a piece of barb wire to trip people on someone else's property. Lot of people seem to think they own to the edge of the road, but this is Rarely the case. The city, county, or state will typically own 40-80 ft of RoW on a 2 lane road, and 85-200 ft on a four lane.