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Member |
I got tired of digging and replacing broken post after the third time at my old house. I was required to place my box across the street. The owner across the street had the say as to where my box had to be... he specified near the corner, along with his. He was on a corner lot and didn't want a box in front of his house. Funny thing was, his usually got taken out along with mine, and the stop sign and the street sign when someone cut the corner short, like with a big truck or someone with a trailer. They NEVER stop. I filled a milk can with three 60lb bags of concrete with a rebar cage in it, leaving a 4 inch hollow core created by a shipping tube in the center. A standard 4x4 post fits in it and can swivel in the base if the box is hit. If the post is hit it simply knocks the whole thing over and it can just be stood back up. The box might be dented but that's fairly easy and cheap to fix or replace. Made one for myself and one similar for my daughter. Since I made them hers has been knocked over twice and mine once, with almost no damage done.     Collecting dust. | |||
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member |
We have not had a problem out here where we live, but vandals would have a problem with ours. The box itself is an overzize USPS approved, and it is 3/16" steel. The stand is self-welded and sunk into 2 feet of concrete. No problems so far, in 15 years.  | |||
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| Member |
don't ya think you ought to mount your mailbox a foot further in from the street if 3 different cars accidentally hit it with their side mirrors? I don't think people are leaving the side mirrors to their car on your grass as a prank........ honestly I'd buy the cheapest mailbox you can buy and mount it as gingerly as you can so it just gets knocked off and you put it right back up with zip ties or something easy........ | |||
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| Purveyor of Fine Avatars  |
As long as the area is safe to drive off the road, you can set your mailbox back a few feet and your postal worker shouldn't have an issue with it. Just make sure the box is at the approved height. As for making the box itself hit-proof, I've seen smaller boxes inside larger cement-filled ones done. The outsides are obviously targets by vandals, but the interior box is just fine. I haven't seen any swing-away boxes. "I'm yet another resource-consuming kid in an overpopulated planet raised to an alarming extent by Hollywood and Madison Avenue, poised with my cynical and alienated peers to take over the world when you're old and weak!" - Calvin, "Calvin & Hobbes" | |||
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Member |
There is a certain liability attached to a hardened mailbox if it causes injuries. Just a FWIW. La Dolce Vita | |||
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Cynic |
+1000 lawsuit I was going to post what you posted. Someone gets killed or hurt bad you might be in deep shit _______________________________________________________ And no, junior not being able to hold still for 5 seconds is not a disability. | |||
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Member |
Where I once lived, teenagers liked to drive down the street and wack mailboxes with a baseball bat. Upon advise by my attorney, I did not put up a reinforced mailbox because if any harm came to a kid, I would be held liable. Solution, each evening I put two open pint cans of enamel in the mailbox - one black and the other yellow - and removed them the next morning. After about two weeks, I had to replace my mail box again, but this time I had to smile thinking about how a car of teenagers were going to explain the new exterior, and probably interior, paint job and the clothes, etc. Last mailbox I had to replace.  . “Leave the Artillerymen alone, they are an obstinate lot. . .” – Napoleon Bonaparte http://poundsstudio.com/ | |||
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A Grateful American |
Cite cases. If the mailbox does not violate locale, county, state etc. laws or regulation as to construction materials or setback, which vary widely in any given place, the old "if it cause injuries" saw, is pap. Check you local criteria and build accordingly. If some twit swings a bat and breaks his arm, it's on him/her, and too bad for them. Unless it's for the chirrenz, then we must be careful not to offend. "the meaning of life, is to give life meaning" ✡ Ani Yehudi אני יהודי Le'olam lo shuv לעולם לא שוב! | |||
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| Member |
Don't take this as advice , I'm just relating an experience... Laws vary place to place and the advice we received is decades old now so... Years ago and My Dad's attorney stated that you have no responsibility to insure your box won't injure someone if they hit it. This came up after a potential customer needed a brick drive entrance repaired after it was hit by a car and the driver was killed. Dad was asked for a repair quote. Repair cost to be covered by the deceased drivers liability Ins. My Dad ended up not submitting a bid, just didn't want any part of it and had bigger fish to fry anyway. IIRC the way it was explained was, If someone runs off the road and hits your house it's totally on them, Agree? The same applies if they run off the road and hit a tree, a light pole, or a parked car... or your mailbox. It would require either negligent or criminal action by someone to do that. They are negligent if they run off the road, or criminally responsible if done intentionally. That weighs heavily in your favor. Anyway, to avoid any POTENTIAL hassel, and not wanting to actually hurt someone over a mailbox, I just made mine a form of breakaway. Collecting dust. | |||
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Member |
When we were kids, a friend's family mail box was always being hit and run over by some of the local jack offs. Their house was located on a corner lot with their mail box was sitting at the corner point. It was in a nice little flower garden that was the pride of my buddy's mother. After their mail box was hit for the third time that year, my buddy's father had had enough. The father was a former US Navy Seabee and now worked at the local steel forge and foundry. He was not one to be messed with. What the father did was re-engineer their mail box post using a piece of armor plate steel bar stock having a "V" cross section. He then anchored everything into a six foot deep footing of concrete. When completed, everything looked pretty nice in that flower garden. Well, about a month later the local dumb a$$es tried to run the mail box over, again. I've never seen a '55 Chevy torn in half before. It looked kind of cute when arranged around a mail box in a pretty flower garden. “Elections have consequences, and at the end of the day, I won.” – Barack Hussein Obama, January 23, 2009 | |||
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"Member" |
A local True Value used to sell mail boxes that were welded from 1/4" steel. They must have weighed a ton. I don't know if they were made locally or something the chain carried. What I've always wanted to make, and started to last time I had to replace my mailbox pole, but got lazy and stopped.... is a telescoping mailbox post. The way my street is laid out, the snow plows don't come anywhere near my mailbox, despite it being right on the road. When it snows I end up shoveling a 3-5 feet, by 15-20 long section of deep heavy snow plow thrown snow, just so I will get mail. I thought if I made one that telescoped I could just pull it out a few feet closer to the road till spring. _____________________________________________________ Sliced bread, the greatest thing since the 1911. | |||
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legendary_lawman |
You might consider moving your mailbox away from the road a bit more. If your neighbors aren't having the same problem, moving your box a bit might be the best solution. "In God We Trust" | |||
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Member |
I would listen to this advice, but I am not a lawyer. I was having problems similar to the OP so I investigated fortified mailboxes. An internet search revealed that most county road commissions have regulations requiring that your mailbox & post must be of a breakaway-type design. My search was something like "Mailbox Regulations Kalamazoo County". Most of the regulations for other counties have almost exactly the same wording so no doubt they come from some sort of cookie cutter template. Like I said, I can't give legal advice, but I would think you are on thin ice if you don't follow these regulations. Yes, I've had my box knocked over 5 or 6 times in the last 20 years. I did set it back off the road a little more and that helped tremendously. Some day I may look into a swing arm type support, but nothing that would intentionally cause damage to a vehicle or injury to its occupants. ... stirred anti-clockwise. | |||
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| Member |
http://articles.orlandosentine...nt-county-ordinances La Dolce Vita | |||
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| Member |
5 to 10 inch Drill Stem, set 5 feet deep with cement. guy I knew had a collection of bats and chains. Almost had a pickup truck for the collection but the chain did break before he got out to make claim. | |||
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semi-reformed sailor |
one of my grandmothers was a teacher... more than once a year her mailbox got smashed... my dad was a well driller/plumber.. dad welded up a mailbox that looked like a regulation mailbox but was constructed of 1/4" steel.. he had the car body guy next door paint it all pretty and he then set it on a steel 4x4 steel channel.. and buried it in about four bags of concrete... Mailbox baseball season ended after that. "Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor.” Robert A. Heinlein “You may beat me, but you will never win.” sigmonkey-2020 “A single round of buckshot to the torso almost always results in an immediate change of behavior.” Chris Baker | |||
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| Cynic |
When they repave a State road here in Louisiana I've notice the construction companies put up break away poles now. Must be for a reason might be La. state law. If you build something and put it in the right of way that could kill I would worry about it. _______________________________________________________ And no, junior not being able to hold still for 5 seconds is not a disability. | |||
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| Save an Elephant Kill a Poacher  |
Not cheap but if you want something secure, the Armadillo model, https://www.jaycomailboxes.com/ is very good. 'I am the danger'...Hiesenberg NRA Certified Pistol Instructor NRA Certified Rifle Instructor NRA Life Member | |||
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| Cynic |
When I was a Firefighter there were two young guys going around at night hitting mailboxes with bats. Well they got caught one night by the dumbest Sheriff Deputy that we ever had. His daddy was the Sheriff is the reason he worked there. So they sent them to me at the Fire Dept. to do community service. So I asked them how did they get caught by the dumbest LEO in the Parish. They said they were fixing to hit a box and saw a car coming but it only had one headlight so they knew it wasn't a cop. So they hit it and guess what he turned on his red lights and busted them. _______________________________________________________ And no, junior not being able to hold still for 5 seconds is not a disability. | |||
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| A Grateful American |
That is what my reply states. Q.E.D. "the meaning of life, is to give life meaning" ✡ Ani Yehudi אני יהודי Le'olam lo shuv לעולם לא שוב! | |||
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