Mailbox Hit.. Again! (1 Viewer)

[drobbins]

Last year we built a new house on the lot next door and we moved in last spring. We live on a rural road and I installed the mailbox according to the instructions and postal codes. Not even a week went by and it got hit, probably by a car. It was metal so I hammered it out so we could use it. That weekend, we had a yard sale at our old house next door. While we were sitting there on old junky pickup went by. Because he was looking at the yard sale, his rear view mirror hit the mailbox. I straightened it out again and put reflectors on it. Two more weeks went by and it got hit again. I straightened it out one more time.
This time 2 months went by with out any damage, so I replaced it with a RubberMaid plastic one. Next week it was hit but just bent out of place. Then a month later they took the door off. I got a new box and moved it back from where it was by about a foot. I don’t want to go back too far because it is in front of the house across the street. I also put two 2” wide white reflective stripes on it. Today they pegged it big time. The car was at least 1-½ feet off the road. I could see the tire tracks in the dirt. I am not able to salvage it or the post. Mail was all over the yard and we found a windshield wiper. I don’t think it is being done on purpose because of the narrow road and it has a slight hill in it so drivers tend to get to the side.
Any thoughts on what to do? Build one out of concrete? How about a spring loaded one?

 

[Henry Gale]

Talk to your mail carrier; ask if he/she has any ideas about locating the box where it won't be so vulnerable.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

The house I grew up on is on busy route 85 outside Albany, NY. Between the snow plows and the statistical odds of idiots when so many cars go by your house, our mailbox used to get hit about once a year. Finally, when my grandmother bought us a new mailbox like this, my dad filled the base with concrete and continued it a few feet into the ground. People still hit it, sometimes, and their cars are totalled but the mailbox has held up fine.

 

[JeremyErwin]

If you place the mailbox on land you own outright, you can do anything you please. However, mailboxes are most often placed on the town or staes right-of-way, so they can be accessed by the mail carrier.

And in certain states and municipalities, constructing a road hazard in the form of a concrete mailbox is forbidden. In others, you may be asked to consult with your insurance agent regarding extra liability coverage.

 

[Will_B]

What about placing small boulders -- or large rocks really -- along the edge of the road for ten or twenty feet before your mailbox? When car tires start going over the stones they should realize they're not on the road and will steer back onto it before they reach your box.

 

[drobbins]

I am thinking of moving it up the street some, but then it won't be in front of our driveway. Not a big deal though.

 

[DaveF]

What is it about your location that causes so much mailbox trauma? Are you on a corner? Do people in your town swerve wildly as they drive? Are other mailboxes on your street in similar danger? Are you the target of vandalism?

 

[drobbins]

It is a narrow road & a slight hill that they can't see over. Normally you would drive closer to the center because there is next to no traffic. But with the hill, you can't see if a car is coming the other way so you move to the side. If someone did not plan ahead and there is a car coming, they over react and swerve off the road. My old house's mailbox only got hit once because it is located in a ditch.

 

[JeremyErwin]

Moving the mailbox does seem the bests solution-- if it can be made more visible. You don't want to make an accident deadlier. In some municipalities, particularly ones with snowplow service, concrete mounted posts are illegal.

(Since the state or town owns the road, they also have the right to restrict building on the road's right of way. And since the post office won't deliver to mailboxes that aren't close enough to the road to be off the right of way, well...)

 

[drobbins]

I put up a new box today. I moved it about 20' up the road further and closer to the ditch. I also set it back further, added reflectors and reflective tape. The mail lady drives a jeep, so it shouldn't be an issue getting off the pavement a little. Here is pics of the old box. The frame is bent up, plastic ed and door missing.

 

[Clinton McClure]

This would have made an excellent side plot in a Douglas Adams book. Unfortunately I cannot give any advice other than anchoring the mailbox and reinforcing it with steel rebar. Although it would be interesting to place a second mailbox next to your real one with no address visible and fill it with concrete...

 

[Jay H]

You need one with a motor that retracts into the ground when it detects a large mass coming towards it!

..or maybe install the mailbox on a large spring, therefore it'll bounce back up when hit..

Jay

 

[JeremyErwin]

Swing away mailbox support

 

[drobbins]

I was thinking of one that pivoted 360 and had a hammer on the back side that would hit the car as it passed. But chances are that a innocent child in the back seat would get hit.
I might try that swing away next time. Cool crash videos

 

[Mike Frezon]

Kind of like that road construction fence in front of the batcave in the old 1960s Batman TV show!

As soon as the batmobile approached the fence...down it went and they could stealthily slip in or out of the ol' batcave!

 

[Dave Hahn]

I went to school in Vermont and had a couple "locals" in my dorm suit. They would amuse us "city slickers" with tales of their adolescence; screwing with farmers by moving farm equipment from one field to another in the middle of the night, the classic "cow tipping," and "mail box baseball."

In "mail box baseball," a group of kids would drive around, taking turns "at bat," knocking the shit out of mail boxes along the road with a baseball bat as they drove by.

It could be that your mailbox is being vandalized.

 

[Marc S Kessler]

My rural mailbox was vandalized so I decided to go the revenge route. You can purchase virtually indestructible mailboxes and the post is made from 1/4" inch extruded aluminum. I buried the post 2 feet with 4 rebars in the center and poured 2 bags of concrete to keep in place. The mailbox itself is 1/8" steel an weighs about 25 pounds. Within 2 months it was hit by a Ford product because the right rear view mirror was on the ground beside it. All I had to do was bend back the edge a little and it was as good as new. If kids want to vandalize it they'll break their bat.

 

[KurtEP]

When I was a kid, I was following a snow plow on a rural road and saw the driver make a special effort to swerve and hit each mailbox he came upon. I regret not reporting him to this day, but I doubt they would have done anything about it at the time.

 

[Henry Gale]

Kurt,
Did he actually hit or damage the boxes?

 

[drobbins]

This thread started to remind me of the movie "Cars". Then I remembered the Wigwam motel located right off the interstate here. Now I am thinking "Cozy Cone"