4 ms·

US mail trucks have the driver on the right hand side (as opposed to the left), so that they can deliver mail without having to get out of the driver's seat. Wh

US mail trucks have the driver on the right hand side (as opposed to the left), so that they can deliver mail without having to get out of the driver's seat. Which naturally means we can't just reuse trucks made for the UK or other Commonwealth markets because... China or socialism or whatever.

lisper 6y ago
TFA actually explains all this pretty well: "The requirements dictated the step-in height, the glass height (including the low side glass), the vision angles, the internal height, and the maximum roof height," wrote Kahn in a tweet. "That was all locked in." Other constraints included the ability to reach the mailbox while in the seated position, and the requirement to see the ground around the vehicle...
- gambiting 6y ago
  The true marvel about all of this is how somehow every other country in the world manages just fine without these requirements.
  - analog31 6y ago
    Every country's postal system is a system with a lot of interacting parts. You change one part, and it affects the others. Our postal system makes extensive use of mail delivered by vehicles directly to mailboxes that are located at the curb, on streets that are relatively dangerous for people. [0] [0] I couldn't quickly find any believable stats, but I think it's a reasonable guess to start with traffic deaths in general, for which there are published numbers.
    - diggan 6y ago
      The first part (mail directly to mailboxes) is the same everywhere I've seen it too here in Europe (mostly Spain and Sweden to be fair). But yeah, the second one makes a lot of sense. Would actually explain a lot of the design choices for anything American. We don't have that much to worry about, so we can spend less on armored postal vans.
  - xeromal 6y ago
    There's relatively few countries in the world that are as large and sparse as the US. Sprawling metropolis's are rare. In the rural areas, houses are miles apart.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  And the requirements are dictated by what? It certainly sounds reasonable to have an enclosed cargo area with sufficient head room for comfort, but saying they look like they do because there are requirements doesn't really explain it.
  - lttlrck 6y ago
    The millions of existing mailboxes installed at regulation height certainly play a big part of it.
    - maxerickson 6y ago
      My rural carrier had no problem putting mail in my mailbox from a modified jeep. They would stop and get out for packages of any size (putting them by the house). In town here, it's all walking routes. I wonder what the numbers are on curbside vs walking?
      - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
        Your rural mail carrier selected the vehicle based on a known defined mailbox height.
        maxerickson 6y ago
        Yes, that was my point, they were able to buy an (apparently) suitable vehicle 'off the shelf'.
        pixl97 6y ago
        And those jeeps had generally terrible visibility. You're making a lot of statements with little to no data, nor even research on to why they would want to improve.
        maxerickson 6y ago
- meepmorp 6y ago
  I saw that, but those constraints don't seem to be necessary for postal vehicles in other countries. The person I was responding to was wondering why other countries seem to just fine with regular looking vans that have postal branding. It's worth asking about, isn't it? Just because those things are spec'd as they are, that doesn't mean they need to be.
  - FDSGSG 6y ago
    Most countries don't really have US-style mailboxes either.
    - gambiting 6y ago
      And yet.....everyone manages. Houses in rural areas have mailboxes outside of the property, sure they are not the iconic american half-pipe shape, but properties all over the world have mailboxes too.
      - pixl97 6y ago
        Right, everyone manages with what we have now so why change anything? I mean who cares if increased visibility reduces the number of pedestrian collisions, who cares if seat designs reduce the number of back injuries. The world is good enough as it is.
  - jcrawfordor 6y ago
    Quite a few national postal services use custom or semi-custom vehicles, e.g. Deutsche Post. For those that use more "off the shelf" vehicles they are probably still custom orders specifying an exact feature set. But at the end of the day, it just becomes a matter of cost/benefit. The USPS is enormous, and that large scale makes it financially viable for them to purchase a custom vehicle since the quantities are so great. This allows them to get exactly what they want which gains some operating efficiency. Oshkosh is also a very well established manufacturer of vehicles for the government and holds substantial military contracts for custom vehicles such as the highly recognizable HEMTT. So the Oshkosh purchase is fairly low-risk in that Oshkosh has a proven track record of delivering vehicles for government fleets. UPS and FedEx also make use of largely custom vehicles. They are based on off-the-shelf step vans, but to a large extent OTS step vans no longer exist in the US and nearly all of them you see are contract designs for fleets. There's a bit of a cyclical relationship here as the modern step van is basically defined by UPS and FedEx, which purchase their trucks custom to specification from body-makers like Utilimaster and formerly Grumman-Olson. Grumman popping up here again is not coincidental - the USPS and UPS formerly got their custom trucks from the same manufacturer, but Grumman-Olson is no longer nearly as important of a player as it once was. The short answer: USPS is contracting for at least 50,000 vehicles. When you buy 50,000 of just about anything you gain a lot of leverage to customize.
- pilsetnieks 6y ago
  The article (and your comment) explains how the design conforms to the constraints but what I think they were asking was why have those specific constraints in the first place (apart from "that's how it's always been done here.") Now, I understand that it's to prevent accidents, make it more easy to put mail into mailboxes if they're situated right next to the road, etc. Yet somehow every other country makes it work without specialized vehicles.
  - pixl97 6y ago
    I mean, we used to make cars work without seatbelts, so why did we ever add them?
tpmx 6y ago
"Opposite-driven" postal vehicles have been common/standard in Europe for a very long time. It's not a complex thing to change, especially since many car models are made to be sold in e.g. the UK anyways.
imwillofficial 6y ago
“ China or socialism or whatever.”? What do you mean?
- dlp211 6y ago
  It was a joke.
- meepmorp 6y ago
  I'm saying Karl Marx himself came up with the metric system, and that's why we need 100% Freedom-certified Tactical Mail Delivery Vehicles.
jcrawfordor 6y ago
While USPS is not subject to "Buy America" requirements, like most quasi-governmental organizations it does have an acquisition policy of purchasing vehicles from US manufacturers rather than overseas when possible. This aligns with the general US system of preferential government purchasing, in which federal purchasing decisions are based partially on policy objectives such as promoting small businesses and US manufacturing. There could be some debate over this policy position, but at its core it could be viewed as a very light extension of New Deal principles---that the federal government should put its money where its mouth is by patronizing the types of US businesses that are the subject of so much political rhetoric. To my knowledge, there are no right-hand-drive vehicles manufactured in the US, as RHD is limited to countries closer to extensive auto manufacturing in Europe and Asia. As a stopgap measure, the Postal Service has been making use of domestic minivans converted to RHD using a belt arrangement that does not look particularly user friendly. The driver has to lean over to see the dashboard instruments.
- dingaling 6y ago
  What surprises me us that the USPS is buying the vehicles directly from Oshkosh as a customer, rather than buying the technical design package and contracting construction out to several smaller companies. Unit cost would be higher but it would be laying the groundwork for the next generation of vehicle, sustaining those smaller companies and encouraging innovation. As well as avoiding too much reliance on one supplier.

lisper 6y ago

TFA actually explains all this pretty well: "The requirements dictated the step-in height, the glass height (including the low side glass), the vision angles, the internal height, and the maximum roof height," wrote Kahn in a tweet. "That was all locked in." Other constraints included the ability to reach the mailbox while in the seated position, and the requirement to see the ground around the vehicle...

gambiting 6y ago
The true marvel about all of this is how somehow every other country in the world manages just fine without these requirements.
- analog31 6y ago
  Every country's postal system is a system with a lot of interacting parts. You change one part, and it affects the others. Our postal system makes extensive use of mail delivered by vehicles directly to mailboxes that are located at the curb, on streets that are relatively dangerous for people. [0] [0] I couldn't quickly find any believable stats, but I think it's a reasonable guess to start with traffic deaths in general, for which there are published numbers.
  - diggan 6y ago
    The first part (mail directly to mailboxes) is the same everywhere I've seen it too here in Europe (mostly Spain and Sweden to be fair). But yeah, the second one makes a lot of sense. Would actually explain a lot of the design choices for anything American. We don't have that much to worry about, so we can spend less on armored postal vans.
- xeromal 6y ago
  There's relatively few countries in the world that are as large and sparse as the US. Sprawling metropolis's are rare. In the rural areas, houses are miles apart.
maxerickson 6y ago
And the requirements are dictated by what? It certainly sounds reasonable to have an enclosed cargo area with sufficient head room for comfort, but saying they look like they do because there are requirements doesn't really explain it.
- lttlrck 6y ago
  The millions of existing mailboxes installed at regulation height certainly play a big part of it.
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    My rural carrier had no problem putting mail in my mailbox from a modified jeep. They would stop and get out for packages of any size (putting them by the house). In town here, it's all walking routes. I wonder what the numbers are on curbside vs walking?
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      Your rural mail carrier selected the vehicle based on a known defined mailbox height.
      - maxerickson 6y ago
        Yes, that was my point, they were able to buy an (apparently) suitable vehicle 'off the shelf'.
        pixl97 6y ago
        And those jeeps had generally terrible visibility. You're making a lot of statements with little to no data, nor even research on to why they would want to improve.
        maxerickson 6y ago
meepmorp 6y ago
I saw that, but those constraints don't seem to be necessary for postal vehicles in other countries. The person I was responding to was wondering why other countries seem to just fine with regular looking vans that have postal branding. It's worth asking about, isn't it? Just because those things are spec'd as they are, that doesn't mean they need to be.
- FDSGSG 6y ago
  Most countries don't really have US-style mailboxes either.
  - gambiting 6y ago
    And yet.....everyone manages. Houses in rural areas have mailboxes outside of the property, sure they are not the iconic american half-pipe shape, but properties all over the world have mailboxes too.
    - pixl97 6y ago
      Right, everyone manages with what we have now so why change anything? I mean who cares if increased visibility reduces the number of pedestrian collisions, who cares if seat designs reduce the number of back injuries. The world is good enough as it is.
- jcrawfordor 6y ago
  Quite a few national postal services use custom or semi-custom vehicles, e.g. Deutsche Post. For those that use more "off the shelf" vehicles they are probably still custom orders specifying an exact feature set. But at the end of the day, it just becomes a matter of cost/benefit. The USPS is enormous, and that large scale makes it financially viable for them to purchase a custom vehicle since the quantities are so great. This allows them to get exactly what they want which gains some operating efficiency. Oshkosh is also a very well established manufacturer of vehicles for the government and holds substantial military contracts for custom vehicles such as the highly recognizable HEMTT. So the Oshkosh purchase is fairly low-risk in that Oshkosh has a proven track record of delivering vehicles for government fleets. UPS and FedEx also make use of largely custom vehicles. They are based on off-the-shelf step vans, but to a large extent OTS step vans no longer exist in the US and nearly all of them you see are contract designs for fleets. There's a bit of a cyclical relationship here as the modern step van is basically defined by UPS and FedEx, which purchase their trucks custom to specification from body-makers like Utilimaster and formerly Grumman-Olson. Grumman popping up here again is not coincidental - the USPS and UPS formerly got their custom trucks from the same manufacturer, but Grumman-Olson is no longer nearly as important of a player as it once was. The short answer: USPS is contracting for at least 50,000 vehicles. When you buy 50,000 of just about anything you gain a lot of leverage to customize.
pilsetnieks 6y ago
The article (and your comment) explains how the design conforms to the constraints but what I think they were asking was why have those specific constraints in the first place (apart from "that's how it's always been done here.") Now, I understand that it's to prevent accidents, make it more easy to put mail into mailboxes if they're situated right next to the road, etc. Yet somehow every other country makes it work without specialized vehicles.
- pixl97 6y ago
  I mean, we used to make cars work without seatbelts, so why did we ever add them?

tpmx 6y ago

"Opposite-driven" postal vehicles have been common/standard in Europe for a very long time. It's not a complex thing to change, especially since many car models are made to be sold in e.g. the UK anyways.

imwillofficial 6y ago

“ China or socialism or whatever.”? What do you mean?

dlp211 6y ago
It was a joke.
meepmorp 6y ago
I'm saying Karl Marx himself came up with the metric system, and that's why we need 100% Freedom-certified Tactical Mail Delivery Vehicles.

jcrawfordor 6y ago

While USPS is not subject to "Buy America" requirements, like most quasi-governmental organizations it does have an acquisition policy of purchasing vehicles from US manufacturers rather than overseas when possible. This aligns with the general US system of preferential government purchasing, in which federal purchasing decisions are based partially on policy objectives such as promoting small businesses and US manufacturing. There could be some debate over this policy position, but at its core it could be viewed as a very light extension of New Deal principles---that the federal government should put its money where its mouth is by patronizing the types of US businesses that are the subject of so much political rhetoric. To my knowledge, there are no right-hand-drive vehicles manufactured in the US, as RHD is limited to countries closer to extensive auto manufacturing in Europe and Asia. As a stopgap measure, the Postal Service has been making use of domestic minivans converted to RHD using a belt arrangement that does not look particularly user friendly. The driver has to lean over to see the dashboard instruments.

dingaling 6y ago
What surprises me us that the USPS is buying the vehicles directly from Oshkosh as a customer, rather than buying the technical design package and contracting construction out to several smaller companies. Unit cost would be higher but it would be laying the groundwork for the next generation of vehicle, sustaining those smaller companies and encouraging innovation. As well as avoiding too much reliance on one supplier.