The United States Postal Service is beginning to install its latest effort toward a theft-proof mailbox in downtown Bethesda. This one was just placed at the intersection of Cordell and Norfolk Avenues in the Woodmont Triangle, and is the first one I have noticed. It does not have a door you pull open, only a slot. To get your envelope into the slot successfully, as the Joker once said, "all it takes is a little push." The new boxes will only defeat attempts to fish mail out of the box, and won't stop the more aggressive crooks who steal or buy the keys to them, as long as the USPS continues to use their skeleton "arrow keys."
Remind me again why we are allowing this to happen.
ReplyDeleteBecause the people in charge rather react to crime than incarcerate the ones who commit the crime.
DeleteThanks Robert. Unfortunately, this effort doesn't get to the main problem of mail theft using the "arrow keys" that open the lower door to the blue mail boxes (as reported here and elsewhere). USPS needs to step up a lot more than this!
ReplyDeleteThis will justify two price increases at USPS. One to pay for the slotted blue boxes and another to pay for the key-less blue boxes. Speaking of which, I found one lying on the ground outside a blue box and I dropped back into the box. I was tempted to take it to the postmaster, but I did not want to get the absentminded mailman in trouble.
ReplyDelete5:20 MA
ReplyDeleteElementary my dear Watson: We have professional pussyfooting prosecutors.
All of you disgruntled patrons can thank Louis DeJoy, your beloved Master.
ReplyDeleteIt might not have been an "absentminded mailman" who dropped that key, but someone about to be caught in the act of using it to steal mail.
ReplyDelete9:44 AM Spot on! DeJoy's goal from the start has been to take down USPS and hand the postal service over to for-profit delivery companies.
ReplyDeletePostmasters General are appointed for a set period of time and can only be removed before their tenure ends if the USPS board of governors votes them out, which the current crowd won't do. Too bad for us.
"Postal police union sues USPS, DeJoy over limits to mail theft enforcement authority"
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/14/postal-service-police-union-sues-dejoy-414537
"Can postal cops patrol street crime? USPS [DeJoy] says no, but union says yes."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/06/08/postmaster-general-louis-dejoy-postal-police-patrols/
They have had one at Glen Echo for some time. It's hard to put more than on letter in at a time -- fun mailing multiple letters.
ReplyDeleteThey're lucky to get any letters to mail anymore.
DeleteThe one in my neighborhood sounds like 'The Guns of Navarone, each time I open and close it.
ReplyDeleteA lazy individual, who runs a home business, shoehorned oversized packages and damaged the hinges.
I complained to the local postmaster, who acknowledged the identity of the culprit, but nothing has changed.