

Postal Service Love Series Celebrates the Beauty and Delight of Flowers December 9, 2021

– Universal service at affordable and uniform prices: Whether you are sending a regular letter or card across town or across the country, the same Forever stamp will get it there. This would slow down the entire mail delivery process, increase the costs of mail delivery, and ultimately raise the price tag of mail for customers. At the very least, the carrier would have to spend extra time at your mailbox in order to figure out what’s what. If unlocked, curbside mailboxes were open to package delivery companies, however, a mail carrier would not be able to fit those very items into the mailbox, or to distinguish between outgoing mail and privately delivered items. Most of what goes into the mailbox today are letters, catalogs, and magazines. – Efficient delivery of mail: Open mailbox access would cause clutter and confusion in customers’ mailboxes. The RAND Corporation, a leading think tank with national security expertise, found that “relaxing the Mailbox Rule will have a negative effect on public safety and mail security,” as it would increase criminals’ opportunities for mail theft, identity theft, and explosive attacks.

It would be much harder to distinguish legitimate actors from common criminals.

– Security: Open mailbox access would make it an everyday occurrence for third parties to enter private mailboxes. Regulators, courts, and experts who have studied the issue in depth agree that exclusive access provides many important benefits to the American people, and that open mailbox access would take away those benefits. Rather, it reflects commonsense ways of helping the Postal Service shoulder its enormous and unique responsibility: namely, delivering mail and packages to every home and business in America at affordable prices, and not just delivering packages to the most profitable addresses or with hefty surcharges. The fact is that exclusive mailbox access isn’t some kind of gratuitous privilege. If delivery companies want to discuss stuffing your mailbox with their packages, then that discussion needs to start with why mailboxes are reserved for the Postal Service in the first place. In his recent Office of Inspector General blog article, “Rethinking Mailbox Access,” UPS executive Keith Kellison proposes giving other delivery companies access to your mailbox. Response to OIG Blog Article from UPS on Mailbox Access
