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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: 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.