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Dog attacks on mail carriers hit 6,755 as online sales boom
Booming Online Sales Mean More Dog Bites for Mail Carriers
Booming online retail sales are good news for the U.S. Postal Service, but its carriers are incurring a cost: more dog bites.
Dog attacks on postal workers rose last year to 6,755, up 206 from the previous year and the highest in three decades, as internet shopping booms and consumers increasingly demand seven-day-a-week package delivery and groceries dropped at their doorstep. The high for attacks dated back to the 1980s, at more than 7,000, before maulings by pit bulls and other potentially aggressive dogs became a public issue.
Los Angeles topped the 2016 list with 80 attacks on postal workers, followed by Houston with 62 and Cleveland with 60.
The Postal Service released its annual figures Thursday as part of National Dog Bite Prevention Week, which begins Sunday.
(Score: 1) by Scrutinizer on Saturday April 08 2017, @07:31AM (6 children)
Does the USPS conduct operations differently throughout various regions of the USA? Doorstep package delivery is a fever dream for me in the southwest.
The article itself doesn't seem to provide any evidence that package delivery is the primary cause for the reported increase in lacerations de canine. If my mailbox is any indication the typical American's the posthuman comes by on a too-frequent basis regardless of my package-ordering activities (apparently part of a conspiracy to boost paper shredder sales by gumming up existing ones into uselessness).
Even when a package is ordered, unless the carton is small enough to fit in the letterbox, I just get a pink slip demanding I report to my local USPS branch if I ever want a chance of seeing my package whole and un-dismembered.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @07:39AM (1 child)
> Does the USPS conduct operations differently throughout various regions of the USA?
Dude, they conduct operations differently by neighborhood.
If they won't leave packages on your doorstep it probably means you live in a poor neighborhood.
I recommend that you be richer. It really improves life in so many different ways.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @07:59AM
Actually, the USPS hallmark of a poor neighborhood is inconsistency. On the doorstep, in the front yard... if you're lucky enough that they did not deliver it somewhere else.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @08:02AM
If my mailbox is any indication the typical American's the posthuman comes by on a too-frequent basis regardless of my package-ordering activities
Well, I guess that's one way [wikipedia.org] of referring to the postman.
I, for one, welcome our new USPS overlords.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @12:32PM
I have to walk out to the end of the driveway, no letter box on my suburban door. The mailbox is one of the big "rural" ones, opening approx 10" wide x 12" high (arched on top). USPS is happy to leave packages inside. Or even stuffed halfway in if they are too long and the door won't close (assuming it is a dry day). Bigger stuff they usually pull into the driveway and leave by the side/garage door.
There are no unleashed dogs in our neighborhood, at least none that I've seen (except for one ancient & slow moving wiener dog that sneaks into our yard to watch the squirrels). That might have something to do with good mail delivery?
Every year or two there is something that needs to be signed for. If we don't hear the door bell, then we get the slip, have to wait a day until the package is back at the post office and go collect it ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday April 10 2017, @06:25AM
Delivery is totally different everywhere; it's very localized. Where I am, they leave mail in the box at the end of the driveway, but if it doesn't fit they come to your door. So yeah, if they're delivering more packages, that means that around here, they'll be getting out of their truck more often, which exposes them to more dogs.
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Monday April 10 2017, @09:26AM
I wonder what you are getting delivered that it could possibly be "dismembered".