Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by gt_ 3044 days ago
Rural American mail trucks are being replaced with barely-running junk minivans or really whatever can be purchased for the cheapest possible amount, probably the lease emission-aware solution I can think of. I’m not sure if these are workers providing their own transportation on contract or what, but I have seen some very sketchy vehicles delivering mail in multiple states around the US lately.
3 comments
Spooky23 3044 days ago
Rural delivery has always been private vehicles. Carriers with spouses who have good jobs buy right hand drive Subaru’s. Everyone else drives some hooptie mobile.

A lot of farm spouses used to do this gig. A moderately reliable car and a mechanically inclination is a key to success — cars need brakes every 3-6 weeks.

USPS in general started buying more low bidder commercial vehicles because their package volumes have increased and the bespoke, cheap mail trucks were too small.

link
ams6110 3044 days ago
Jeep used to sell a RHD Cherokee for delivery. I think, or maybe they were re-imported. But I've seen more than a few rural carriers driving these. Older Jeeps tend to rust out so there may not be many of them on the road these days.
link
toomuchtodo 3044 days ago
Sometimes a Model S will do:

https://electrek.co/2016/02/25/mail-man-tesla-model-s/

link
jws 3044 days ago
The USPS is in a pinch for vehicles. Their LLVs (the boxy mail truck, Long Life Vehicle) are at end of service life and being extended with costly maintenance. They need to hit alternative fuel targets with the replacements, electric looks like the win for most of the trucks, but they aren't there yet so they keep fixing things.

It seems likely that stopgap vehicles are a reasonable answer. In my suburban area I'm seeing minivans where I used to see LLVs.

There is a nice exposition of LLVs and the electric replacement option here: https://www.greatbusinessschools.org/usps-long-life-vehicle/

link
sillyquiet 3044 days ago
rural route carriers, who are generally independent contractors working for the USPS to serve low volume highly-dispersed routes, (what used to be called star routes) have provided their own vehicles since forever.
link