Eliminate USPS After-Dark Mail Delivery

December 8, 2002

To:
United States Postal Service
U.S. Congress
U.S. Senate
National Association of Letter Carriers
Concerned Fellow American Citizens

From:
Rick Owens www.PostalEmployeeNetwork.com
All Postal Letter Carriers
Concerned Postal Employees
Concerned Postal Customers

Eliminate USPS After-Dark Mail Delivery


PLEASE Stand with me and all concerned postal employees and American citizens in our protest against the requirement and/or necessity of delivering this nations mail after dark.

Under current US Postal Service policy, and standard operating procedures, letter carriers are being forced, either through their reporting times or through the needs of service, to deliver customer mail in areas and locales that are dangerous to said carriers when their duty hours extend street delivery times into either darkness or limited daylight hours.

Thousands of these carriers find themselves delivering mail in crime infested housing projects and neighborhoods throughout this nation. Areas that are infested with drug dealers, drug users, criminals, poorly lighted streets, and dangerous elements that threaten the very lives of postal employees and all citizens.

Letter carriers, because of service needs, are often required to deliver in areas that they are not familiar with. At these times the carrier is most vulnerable to attack upon person or life. He/she is attempting to complete their appointed rounds and in doing so may lose their life because of limited visibility due to the hours of darkness or poorly lighted streets. Carriers, looking for house or building numbers in the dark, may not see that vehicle quickly approaching them or, the vehicles driver may not see them.

I propose to you that carriers should at least be given the free right to choose whether or not they deliver after daylight hours have ended. Carriers should be afforded the courtesy of reporting earlier in the day to allow completion of appointed rounds BEFORE daylight hours end. This choice should be the carriers and should not rest upon the needs of service or US Postal Service regulations.

The solution is to END AFTER DARK DELIVERY FOREVER.