A Friendly Reminder about Mailboxes during Plowing Season

A friendly reminder to anyone on a street that has a mailbox. The elevation of the street may have changed, thus causing your box to be susceptible to plow damage. The USPS and the MDOT differ on the requirement of clearance for this. The Town follows MDOT as the USPS recommendation is generic across the country and does not adequately address the equipment that we use in the north east.  From the bottom of the box, to finish grade of the pavement needs to have a clear width of at least 44 inches.  The equipment itself is apx. 40 inches tall and we have to allow for ice and frozen stuff on the ground that causes the equipment to ride up. That is the rationale for 44 at a min. Please remember that these dimensions are to the bottom of the box itself, not to the post. If you have a 4 inch post, please raise the box so that we have 44 inches of clear width. Most of the time the plow doesn’t actually hit the box, it hits the wood support under the box, thus causing it to break. This is a good time to perform some regular maintenance on your post as well, they tend to get forgotten over time.  Mailboxes are placed along the side of the road at the owners risk. This is state law, not anything local, this means that if someone drives off the road or the plow does hit it, the owner of the box is responsible for replacing it. 

Seth Hagar