It certainly is painful to see that the United States Postal Service does not have to accommodate disabled persons when it decides which is more important: protection against theft or whether a driver with an ambulatory disability should expect to be treated equal to everyone else?
The good new is, at least in Atlantic Highlands where Casey is the Supervisor, the staff is going above and beyond what is required of them and is going out of their way to help persons with disabilities.
The bad news is, not every post office has a Casey as Supervisor, and the US Postal Service is changing its system nationwide.
The immediate problem is the curb side mailboxes in front of the Atlantic Highlands post office. They used to be facing the street, proper height for most vehicles, and with slots big enough the driver of the vehicle could open it, put in stamped envelopes or small packages simply by pulling up to the curb side box, putting down his window, and dropping in the mail for pickup by postal employees at the appointed time.
Now…and Atlantic Highlands is one of the first in the area to reap this ‘benefit”, there are two new shiny clean mailboxes, still at the curb. But they’re facing inward. Towards the sidewalk. Impossible to access from the vehicle.
Which means a handicapped person with difficulty standing, walking, moving, even an elderly person who has great difficulty in getting in and out of cars but is still capable of driving them, now has to get out of the vehicle and walk around to the opposite side of the mailbox as the closest receptacle, and drop in the stamped mail through a much smaller slot. No more little packages. Just envelopes. (As a side note, it’s going to be fascinating to see how this will impact traffic congestion or backups on the adjoining road.)
I filed a complaint with the official US Postal Service, not the local office. The official office where you send inquiries and complaints apparently got it, read it, and decided it’s not their problem. So they handed it over to the local office. Within a couple of hours of my filing the complaint, Casey the local Supervisor was on the phone to me.
“It’s because of all the thefts you’ve read about”, she explained. “They’re doing this all over the nation. This is a change to Service is making and it is above us”. I would not expect Casey to know all the answers, but I still cannot understand how facing a mailbox toward a sidewalk prevents thefts better than having it face a sitting person in a car. Neither she nor I knows whether there are cameras available somewhere if the box is facing the sidewalk, or even some kinds of alarms that ring somewhere if the sidewalk facing box is tampered with.
Casey was patient, calm and eager to answer my questions, but unfortunately did not have any information to respond to most of them. She did tell me, and I certainly appreciate it, what she and her staff are doing to make things as easy as possible for persons who complain or need assistance. It’s only because of this staff, however, that Atlantic Highlands residents with ambulatory problems can still use a curbside mailbox like everybody else. Though it will take them a little more time. (Again, traffic congestion?) Treating persons with disabilities different from others?
Casey said she and her staff are always willing to help anyone who needs it, and she cited several examples where she has already done this. All a driver need do is call the post office at 732-291-0740 and request the supervisor come out to the car, take the mail from an outstretched hand out the open window and she will drop it in the mail receptacle. Or, as an alternative, a person can leave the mail in his home delivery mailbox for the carrier to pick up at his next delivery time and bring it to the post office.
Casey’s a positive person and looking for ways to keep all postal users happy, as well as meet the needs of the staff, both inside the office as well as those incredible mail deliverers….I’ve heard folks in this town say theirs is the very best and it seems to be true all over town…… Optimistically she said “we can figure it out.”
In the meantime, the post office has been offering a mail drop service in front of post offices for decades. Now, apparently because these mail boxes cannot be designed or modified to prevent thefts, the only solution is for the handicapped person, the one who cannot get out of his vehicle easily while others may be waiting in line to use the same service or leave their vehicles running while they walk to the mailbox, to be inconvenienced and made to feel different one again.
Is there something wrong here?
