5 Ways British and American Mail is Very Different
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- čas přidán 21. 10. 2020
- With Christmas, not to mention one country’s election, on the horizon, Britain and America's’ postal services are about to enter the busiest period of the year. So what better time to look at 5 ways British and American mailing is very different.
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It's worth pointing out that here in the UK since 2012 it's possible to see gold post boxes. The government decided that once the London Olympics were over that each British competitor who won a gold medal you have a post-box in their Postcode district painted gold to commemorate their achievement.
Yes there is one about 4 miles from me in the home town of a cycling gold medallist.
"America's commitment to Rectangles." 😆😂🤣
I live in the UK and have seen blue US post boxes in films and TV shows and always thought they were for litter not letters, lol
In the USA, there is a fine for littering along roadways and often, the mail does seem like litter (trash)!
I thought the same for UK postal box
I laugher when you mentioned mail delivered through opening in the door so the dog can chew it up. My Dad was a letter carrier and can attest to that.
No, 'Litter' is the majority of mail we receive at home in the US today. Advertisements for personal injury lawyers, over-priced health insurance and appeals for money.
As one who was born and raised in the states, I find that hilarious 😂
Evidently they didn't do a good job of portraying what they were doing around the mail boxes.
I believe that one slide should say "mail chute" and not "mail shoot" - Americans love firearms but we generally don't use them for mail.
Hmmm ... I wouldn’t be too sure about that I can totally see some hooligans out in the country shooting at mailboxes
I knew a guy back in my college days who bucked that norm mailbox, stop signs random critters. He grew out of it but I still won't get in a car with him.
@@pjschmid2251
Damaging or in any way tampering with mail boxes, either private of public, is a federal offense.
@@pjschmid2251 I foresaw that response, and to reiterate, I did say "generally."
In UK a Mail Shot is when a company sends out hundreds of identical items of advertising material via Royal Mail. His used to be a massive source of income or the Post Office aka Royal Mail. Now you. trickle in comparison.
I used to get. Mail delivered five days out of six, mostly junk from Mail shots, but now tend to get just one a week.
The British voice of AOL mail was Joanna Lumley.
Donald Trump also recorded a version as part of a celebrity series arround the turn of the millennium. Oddly, it is still available as an option here in 2020.
I thought so
She's funny
People actually used AOL in the UK? I thought we just used their free CDs as mug coasters..
That's absolutely fabulous.
My recollection is when I was young, in the 1950s, if you wrote the return address in the United States you put it on the reverse side of the envelope on the flap. Only businesses put return addresses on the upper left hand corner on the front because the stationary was pre-printed. But some still printed the return address in the back on the flap. In the 1960s pressure was applied to place the return address in the upper left hand corner on the front of the envelope at all times as machine reading became popular at the postal service.
Our preprinted wedding invitations had the return address on the flap. Honestly the envelope was rather small so stuffing all that info and the stamp on the front would have looked terrible.
I think it's less confusing to have them on different sides (and also put something like "from" on as well).
And it spawned this nightmare czcams.com/video/ojn6U2kP_pQ/video.html
I work for USPS as a rural carrier. I have an all driving route, so all of mailboxes are at the end of the driveway. The letterbox in the door is used on walking routes. Even though a person has to purchase their own mailbox, once the are up they are federal property. That is why tampering with a mailbox is a felony.
Mail carriers , both walking & driving , are not given enough thanks for working in difficult situations ! Our rural carrier has delivered in the worst , dangerous winter weather , even when it was ruled that she did not have to - above & beyond to do the job right ! THANKS !!! We leave a small xmas gift ( cookies / gloves /ornament etc. )& card each year in appreciation .
Interesting. Last year I replaced my broken mailbox with an new one. How does my removing the old one and replacing it work with it by your mention of it having been federal property?
I'm curious as to why when my rural box gets vandalized, that nobody cares, especially the police, if it's an actual felony?
@@eTraxx because anything that goes into the mailbox can be mailed. If you put a note in someone’s w/o any postage. It is considered stealing from the US government I’m just a peon who delivers the mail. I don’t make the decisions.
@@stevebengel1346 that’s your police department. My guess is because in all likelihood there was no witness. If you saw the person who actually vandalized, than the police would probably do something.
As a retired letter/postal carrier, I was keenly interested in this episode. Thank you.
i didn't even know usps rented post offices in rural towns , always wonder why no one paid for boxes at ours till found out the town actually owns the building unlike the town next to me which charges yearly to rent a box
Thank you for your service!
I was taught that mail carriers read from the bottom up. Is that true? When I thought about it, it really made sense.
@@mistingwolf not true, maybe in some sorting depots where your handling different kind of mail. But once on route all your mail should be for the state, zip code and city youre delivering to, so you really just concentrate on the street address and number
Really? You're so dull you learnt something? At least you for the stereotype. Congrats.
I wouldn't expect a Phone Box to travel in time. Perhaps a Police Box?
Todd Fraser try asking bill and ted about that 😜
What @RinuMotoga said! There's a famous series of American films, starting with one called "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure," about these two guys who travel through time in a phone booth. That's what he was referring to in the video!
Isn't said Police Box actually a Police Call Box? The non-TARDUS ones have a telephone in them.
@@deaniej2766 The TARDUS has one too. It's been used at least twice.
"The woman is immortal". I mean, most of us kind of agree that she'll outlive us all😂
The Queen and Betty White are dragons. They will live forever!!
She's just trying to hold on til Charles kicks the bucket! 😂
I believe she was replaced by a robot years ago.
💜!:-)💜💜💜
Two women that I know will outlive us all, The Queen and Betty White!! 😉👍
Missed opportunity to include your red glasses on a list of Britain's most iconic objects.
So UK you post with the Royal Mail, US you mail with the Postal Service. Love it.
I address my envelopes in the US recommended manner, even though I'm British. That's the first time I've heard about the Royal Mail's recommended way of doing it.
Lol I received a hand written letter from my grandmother yesterday, I greatly appreciated the sentiment, she's entirely capable of texting me and I'm pretty sure I've spoken to her since she sent it but before I received it,
I've been writing more cards and letters since the pandemic started. Who doesn't love getting personal mail?
I thought one of the differences was going to be that Danger Mouse and his sidekick Penfold live in a London pillar box, but no U.S. super hero lives in a USPS mail box.(At least none that I know of.)
An opportunity missed!
I'd guess Jeopardy Mouse ( dangermouse.fandom.com/wiki/Jeopardy_Mouse ) from the Danger Mouse reboot maybe lives in a US mail box, but I don't think it ever establishes that.
One John Penfold designed a number of elaborately decorative Victoria pillar boxes, notable for their polygonal shape, decorated top and finial.
Both countries DO have super heroes originally from other planets who use phone boxes though. We joke that Superman no longer has a place to change and in one of the Superman movies Clark Kent does see a phone and realizes it is just a pillar phone and changes somewhere else! Of course the Doctor actually LIVES in her / his obsolete Police Call Box.... aka the Totally And Radically Driving In Space machine (TARDIS) Imagine though if the TARDIS were in the form of a British pillar instead.
I L💖VE Dangermouse and Penfold!!!
In cities, where the carriers travel their route on foot, the mailboxes are generally either wall-mounted near the front door or a slot in the door. The roadside mailboxes are used in less densely areas where the carriers drive the route (and have by far the most common right-hand drive vehicles in America).
don't forget apartment buildings where they are sometimes outside in a large grouping with key locks, and the mail person has a universal key to open the backside of the box to put the mail in apartment renters boxes.
Suburbs also have roadside mailboxes - sometimes, several grouped together.
@Robert Leonard If you live a rural area, and order a lot of stuff online like say medication for instance, not having a Saturday delivery option is not a good thing, and let's also not forget about disabled people who sometimes can have enough trouble just getting to the mailbox in front of their home, let alone a group mailbox at the end of the street, and personally I don't want to run to the end of the street in bad weather to check my mail, and they would have to come to your home anyways if you have packages that don't fit in the tiny little boxes, my mail carrier leaves them on my carport door steps, or carport. same for FedEx, UPS, and DHL.
@Robert Leonard I'd be fine with 2 day per week delivery. I can count on one hand the number of items I get each month that don't go directly into the garbage can.
@@NealB123 I agree--mostly just junk!
“The size of your package!?” No one?!?!🤣
I snickered at that.
I giggled at that. Also, boxes in American and Britain are different.
Yes, but only a mail package.
I wonder how many visitors from the UK mistake the American 'Mail' boxes for rubbish bins.
@TheRenaissanceman65 I think I could, especially if I forgot my glasses.
This is the second British vs USA video that has claimed that all US mailboxes are the rural style. (a box near the road) This it NOT the case at all! Those types are generally used when the mail is delivered directly from the truck without the postal worker getting out. In the city, houses (single or multi unit) will usually have a box near the door with a slot or a lid on top. Many older houses may have a mail slot as well, like in Britain, however we often don't use them. (I have mine stuffed with foam to keep the cold weather out) I actually empathized with the mail carrier for him having to climb my front steps and installed a rural style box at the bottom of the steps. lol
I don't believe she is immortal, I think she is just stubborn enough to outlive her son so he can never be king! Teach him to go against her wishes!
Aren't you confusing Charles with Harry? When did Charles go against his mother's wishes?
@@howtubeable Probably by carrying on with Camilla after marrying Diana.
@@howtubeable Marrying Diana?
@@howtubeable If I remember correctly, and it has been a while, she wasn't too thrilled with Diana and then Camilla affair happened, which the queen said she would never be the queen.
It's all that great health care she gets from the NHS.
I live in Wisconsin, I mailed my nephew in Massachusetts a Birthday gift in a letter earlier this year. I paid extra for 2-day express delivery to ensure he received it on his Birthday. It took 8 days to get there.
There's a reason that it's euphemistically called "snail mail".
That's the exception. Most mail is very fast, considering what we pay for it!
In UK it was a tradition for university students to spend Christmas holidays as a temporary postman/postwoman. During training (the 5 minutes talk before you go out on your first "walk" as it was called, even though we cycled) we were told that the "Mails" were the bags that the post arrived in, and that the repair stitching on the mails was carried out by persons who were resting at her Majesty's pleasure. I delivered John Major's Christmas cards, when he lived in our village, and before he became Prime Minister.
I remember one house where a vicious dog would stand guard indoors by the low-level letterbox, and try to snap my fingers. One day I was delivering a long, expensive looking packet, and hung onto the packet while the dog savaged it to shreds. That was the last time I saw the dog.
I work for Canada Post and we call the delivery agents ‘Letter Carriers’ ...
The Post Office here in the States also calls them "Letter Carriers" although the public often call them "Mailmen"
I was carrying mail long time ago and this little boy was standing in his doorway. When he saw me he called to his mom “ mama mama here comes the mailbox”...lol
Canada's first official stamp was the 1851 three pence Beaver. We still have the Queen on our regular stamps. We also say 'postal code'.
@@debbiewilliams6571 I was carrying mail a long time ago, too, and won't forget the housewife with the 3-4 little kids on my route who got a long-expected COD package (surprised nobody has mentioned COD so far....) and she had to pay for it or I couldn't give it to her. She robbed every change container and coin purse in her house, and had to finally go after one of the kids' piggy banks. The bank survived though, so it's a happy ending.
We quite often call them posties (short for postman/lady) in the UK
In most newer communities in America, mail delivery boxes are often in a communal location and have a slot for outgoing mail.
We had some idiots that like to smash our mail box, which is a Federal Crime. So my dad after work made a mail box out of 12 gage steel and welded it to a steel pipe. That solved the mail box problem and must have caused injuring the idiots wrist and arm.
I heard something simmilar only they made the box out of 1/4" plate wrecked their motor. Didn't do it again.
Lol I think there is an episode of bones like that but they filled it with concrete
Surely it's "Mail Chute" rather than "Mail Shoot"?
It is lol
maybe male shoot?
Yup. "Ya can't cure 'stupid'".
We can all definitely agree that “Postmaster-General” is the best title in the world.
ZIP code vs. postal code: It is generally forgotten that ZIP is an acronym for “Zone Improvement Program”, and so is a more specific term than “postal code”.
It was an improvement on “zones within cities” where an address would have a number after the city, then the state. Not all cities had zones.
The ZIP code was established in the early 1960s, along with two letter state abbreviations.
"Return to Sender, address unknown. No such number, no such Zone" - E. Presley
@TheRenaissanceman65 The "zip +4" is similar. It added 4 digits to the zip code that narrows things down even closer.
In Britain the machines that process the mail are focussed on the postcode so as the previous comment said as long as you get that right (and it's legible to the machine) it'll find its way to the correct area.
@TheRenaissanceman65 I once did that on a picture postcard, just to prove that you could do it, and the card arrived at its destination!
In some cases with the Zip+4 the zip code should be the only thing needed at all, as the zip+4 refers to a specific mail box (rented from the postal service). I've never tried this. However, with Zip+4 one should get fairly close to the destination in all cases.
That was Joanna Lumley saying "You've got post!"
I was just going to ask about that! She must be a very busy person!
When I was very little we lived in Fort Wayne and we had a mail slot in the door. One day I was waiting for the mailman and flipped the flap open, creepy little eyes right in the slot, and scared him half to death. 🤣
Those round pillar boxes are for circulars.
Droll!
I'm glad I get to clear my mind from the debate with some Lost In The Pond :)
Same!
Me too!
My mind feels so much better now that I am here
Oh God this debate is a joke.
I always find it funny when guests or the police flip the post lid at residential doors in addition to knocking or ringing the bell on British TV.
Yes. To be able to see the dead body on the floor. Or just to catch somebody out pretending not to be home.
Guessing you're talking about the small flap in the front door, that we Brits call a letterbox (there isn't usually an actual box behind it, the slot itself is the letterbox, and the mail just falls onto the doormat the other side, or into the jaws of the resident dog/cat/toddler etc). Yes it's commonplace to clatter the letterbox a bit as an alternative to knocking or ringing, particular if they have no doorbell and tend to be on the other side of the house and might not hear a basic knock on the door. As AnnB says the letterbox also doubles up as a way of checking if people are home and well if you haven't seen them for a while, many times over the years in the UK postmen and paperboys have made their local paper for helping someone when they were delivering something and looked through the letterbox and noticed someone on the other side of the door needed medical help..
I was bingeing one summer on the novels by British author Anthony Trollope; mainly cause I found a treasure trove of them for a buck each. Was amazed to find out he actually invented the red British pillar post box. What have you really done for us Mr. Dickens and Ms. Austen? Nothing so cool as Anthony Trollope.
Plenty of houses in the US have mail slots instead of mailboxes. In 1984, my parents built their last house from the ground up, and they asked the architect to include a large mail slot in the side door. He complied.
He talks about not having a time-travelling phone booth like Bill and Ted, and I'm here thinking "Well of course you don't. In Britain they're police boxes, not phone booths." ^_^
Either way, they're obsolete in this era of ubiquitous mobile phones.
@@danielbishop1863 The type 40 was obsolete more or less already when the Doctor stole his TARDIS.
Police boxes were totally different from phone boothes or phone boxes. Totally different system. Police boxes were for emergencies only.
@@danielbishop1863 Unless you live in a rural or remote area where there are large swathes without a mobile phone signal. I know some places in London where friends struggle to find a signal. If it's winter, maybe you're up north and there are inches of snow on the ground (as happens each year) and your car breaks down, you'd be glad of a phone box.
Now if all that junk mail (post) that seems to end up in my recycle bin unread, can get lost in the pond, I would be happier.
or this czcams.com/video/zubmkHMRP3U/video.html
I delivered mail. Delivering junk mail can be very lucrative for whoever delivers it. Eg. post office, companies which hire people to deliver flyers
From 1955 to 1971, US mailboxes were red on the top 1/3 and blue on the bottom 2/3. This was very convenient for vietnam war protesters. They added a yellow star at the division line and it became the National Liberation Front (vietcong) flag.
I've heard Postal Worker in the US but it's usually as a general term for all USPS employees rather than the specific person who brings your mail.
Postal Workers are the people who work in the Post Office. The paper fume cause them to "go postal". Letter Carriers deliver mail and breath air untainted by the insidious fumes. Oh, and at one time, in the larger cities mail was delivered twice a day, six days a week.
It depends on the area. Mail men/women, postal workers, letter carriers. It changes to the degree of formalities and explain more of the details of the job at hand.
@@toddfraser3353 Official US countrywide job designation is Letter Carrier.
@@richdiddens4059 here where I am in Canada, letter carriers are those who actually walk door to door to deliver mail, postal workers are people who process mail in a local postal office. They are not the same thing as they have different job descriptions. Non post-office people who deliver mail are called couriers.
My mother often told a story about her father. He had managed a tung oil mill and one of the men that worked for him always called him “Uncle Roy.” My mother and her parents moved to Picayune, Mississippi and this fellow was left without a job. He wrote my grandfather asking if he might have any work available. The letter was addressed “Mister Uncle Roy, Picaninny Mississippi.” (The US didn’t have zip codes yet.)
My grandfather got the letter!
Reminds me of the letter, many years ago, that was addressed to someone at "3 Funnels, 4 Funnels, London".
Postal workers managed to decipher the address and delivered it correctly to Queen Mary's College, Battersea, London.
The Queen Mary was a transatlantic liner with three funnels and Battersea power station had four large chimneys that were visible over a wide area of London.
When I lived in California our house had a mail slot on the front door .The dog would often bark on the other side when mail was delivered , though .
Also lived in a house that had a box attached to a front porch pillar .
Now it's one of those large silver boxes along the side of the road
I remember when there was mailboxes on almost every street now your lucky to see one outside a store let alone on a street corner
My sister is a postal worker, she works at a US postal sorting plant, sorting letters and magazines. Our uncle was a mail carrier, he delivered mail to Kansas City downtown government office buildings in the 1970’s & early 80’s. There is a difference
I left America in the early '70s and remember the mailboxes being red at the top & blue at the bottom, rather than solid blue ☺
And in the UK, you can have fun trying to spot earlier pillar boxes with previous monarchs' initials (Royal cypher): G VI R for George VI, E VII R for Edward VII, V R for Victoria etc
Jules of the YT channel JulesGuides, actually found a E VIII R!
"Mail shoot"? I think you misunderstood the term "going postal".
Chute. It's also a word.
@@themoviedealers But "MAIL SHOOT" is what appeared on screen.
@@caulkins69 I suspect our friend and the two who liked his comment weren’t looking at their screens.
😂😐😬
RISE AND SHINE MR. LIPWIG.
When I was a child, US mailboxes, trucks and uniforms were green. Toward the end of the 1950s they transitioned to a basic red, white and blue scheme. The storage boxes used by the workers (not available to the public) are still the same green.
British posties used to wear a navy blue, serge uniform with a peaked cap. They now wear a pale blue, short-sleeved shirt, hi-vis tabard/singlet/gilet and shorts.
In some places the green ones and blue ones are side by side. In the village where I used to live until the end of May, they removed the blue one and then a year later removed the green one. Then the village removed the concrete pads they had been on because pedestrians kept tripping over them.
what did Uncle Toby do to end up in Grimsby Prison? My guess is whizzing in a pillar box thinking it was loo.
Well Laurence, here in the states, we used to call what is not the mailman, the post man. However in the 80's/90's we had postal workers going crazy (literally) and using rapid fire weapons to shoot up post offices. This spawned the term, "going postal". Some time after that "mail man" became a much more universal term. And "Bill and Ted"?!?! You used Bill and Ted as a reference to traveling telephone booth?!?! HEATHEN!! The Doctor was time traveling in a phone box LONG before Bill and Ted. Philistine! Cheers! DonP
I've always heard "mailman", never "post man". I'm 50. Maybe it's regional? I'm from the Midwest. In the last 20 years or so, it's been "mail carrier".....sometimes.
With the onset of women's lib, mailmen" became "mail persons".
That incident occurred in Edmond, Oklahoma, a suburb on the north side of Oklahoma City. A disgruntled employee killed 14 postal workers and injured 6. I still remember that mass murder, as well as the worst incident of domestic terrorism at the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995.
@@RLC302 I've never heard "mail persons". Where do you live? Regional variations are so interesting.
@@froufroufeatherstone6291 Police Box, Phone Box who cares!~ The only time traveler an Englishman should mention is the Doctor. And agreed. TB is the Doctor. :-)
In many areas of the US, you have to drive miles to the post office to pick up all your mail, including packages from UPS and FedEx.
Residents of Indian Reservations can’t even get mail delivered, their streets aren’t officially recognized by the Federal government (treaty laws are weird like that), so they all have to shell out for P.O. Boxes in nearby towns... cue massive problems when some states said you couldn’t register to vote using a P.O. Box.
Ditto certain places in Britain - a few no go areas in inner cities or very remote areas. Those places also tend to have to transport their wheelie bins long distances if they want the council to empty them.
The penny black was the very first stamp .
I love your channel! Here is a little tidbit of trivia. The term ZIP is an acronym for Zone Improvement Plan; and was introduced in 1963
When the Post Office was a cabinet level department the "Mail Boxes" were Red on top and Blue on the bottom, but when it changed to the US Postal Service the boxes changed to just Blue.
Lost in the pond: "is this just a list of America's enemies?"
The list: includes America
Americans in 2020: yep, seems legit.
😆😆 Maybe we should move to red 😂
Lol
That little fact stopped me cold. Especially in these very strange times we are all living in. How many other "details" do we have in common with these other countries? Creepy.
@@kristinradams7109 I heard they're populated by humans
I love getting mail from the UK because it says Royal Mail and that makes me feel special. Maybe the USPS should change their name and more people would start using it again.
Japanese public post boxes are exactly the same color and shape as British ones. And the receiving ends on the doors/walls/front gate's pillars, too!
Is that Joanna Lumley doing the voice talent for British AOL?
Yes it is.
1:47 - That's "mail chute".
Yes, believe it or not, but not everything in America requires a gun.
The American commitment to rectangles.
The usual factor deciding whether a neighborhood has personal mail boxes or front-door delivery is distance, both between houses and from the house to the street. Places with front door delivery have houses closely spaced with small setbacks from the street and the carrier can easily walk. Longer distances put the carrier in a vehicle and dictate mail boxes by the street.
Phone *booths*, we called them here.
Used to call them. Even Clark Kent can't find one now.
And we call them the phone box.
Aww, the lovely voice of Joanna Lumley.
The lovely voice of the lovely Joanna Lumley : )
My mail box is attached to the outside wall of my house by the front door. My neighborhood was built in the 1950's. The subdivision next to mine that was built in the 2000's has one central set of boxes on the corner so the mailman only has to make one stop.
Mail v Post. I live in a country where both words are used. Australian post boxes are red but basically the same design as the USA type, and buses are not red and public phones are not enclosed. This is contrary to what was implied. I live where the fire trucks are a safety colour that can be seen clearly in smoke, unlike the stupid red.
Really want some Ken Barlow commemorative stamps now...
As an American, I have sometimes seen, and done, return addresses on the back of the envelope. It's not common, but it seems to work just fine.
Yes I agree I do a return address a lot on the other side and also sometimes you get mail especially with the little see-through thing from a business like a bill or something and it's on the left corner also with the address so I don't think there's really any standard I mean anything will work as long as there's a stamp on it and an address they can read you can put it anywhere it's not like that's where it has to go
5
Within the USPS there are City Carriers, rural carriers, mail clerks, and mail handlers. All are postal employees
5:53 Yeah, she really is immortal isn't she! 👑🤣
I love the Post boxes in Norway with the hunters horn on them. They're red as well.
'postal horn'. If in doubt, you have to read 'The Crying of Lot 49' from half a century ago. Some of it is bound to have you laughing, including the 'potsmaster'.
@@davidbeatty3540 lol Seeing as I am half a century old lol I'm going to look it up. I was enthralled with all the myriad differences in Norwegian culture and life from America. I was 'disappointed' when my city Tonsberg, built a mall that looked just like the ones where I lived in New York STATE (not the city) when asked why... i can to Norway to see the old world, and y'all want to have the new world. In the US we try to have everything 'Olde World" style and you want American style lol
Googled hunters horn and postal horn. While many hunters horns are bull horns with leather wraps, there were plenty that looked like the postal horn, so I'll go with them being interchangeable overall
The 'you've got post' lady sounds like Joanna Lumley
The UK Royal Mail delivers the post,
The US Postal Service delivers the mail.
The Mail is etymologically the bag in which packets are carried, originally spelt Male.
Post derives ultimately from the Latin Ponare , to put down or place
Speaking of Ben Franklin, the president sends all his/her mail for free, and it's called "Franking."
I usually look forward to junk mail for 98% of my mail, which makes me go postal.
Many American houses have mail slots in or next to their front doors or garage doors. Separate mailboxes near the road or sidewalk is more common in rural areas, where the houses can be far from the road. In newer tracts it's common for mailboxes to be clustered together in a common location, rather than at each house, which makes delivery more efficient (although it can be a pain for the recipients). I believe USPS regulations require this for new housing developments.
The U.S. Postal Reorganization Act has put the postal service in a tight spot. They receive very little tax support. Instead, the USPS is required to support itself by selling postage and services. But they're not allowed to turn a profit, either. On top of that, Congress determines postage prices and levels of service. This means the post office is responsible for balancing its budget every year, but has little control over its expenses and business model. Add to that the disastrous Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, and the USPS is in real trouble.
BTW, folks, that's not Laurence's real address on that envelope. I also suspect he wrote the addresses with his left hand, just to make things extra-legible.
They receive no tax support. They've been fully self funded for ages now.
In my town it seems to vary by neighborhood. In my neighborhood, mailboxes are attached to the house by the front door (we later cut a slot in the garage wall). A few miles away, in a neighborhood in a separate zip code of a similar age and size front yard to ours, the boxes are at the curb on posts. When I lived in a different city, there was a rash of mail theft in neighborhoods where they had those apartment-style community boxes.
Following the 1970 reorganization, the rates and service is set by the Postal Regulatory (originally Rate) Commision, the five commissioners of which are nominated to six-year terms by the President and confirmed by the Senate. No more than 3 can be of the same party. The President then names the Chairman and the others vote on who gets to be Vice-Chair for a single year.
The Post Office would indeed be making a profit (largely on those last mile delivery contracts with Amazon and others) if it were not for that pesky hamstringing PAEA that was designed to make Americans dissatisfied with the USPS and more amenable to privatisation. The PAEA also strengthened the PRC's service level setting powers and allowed the USPS more freedom to set rates, but without exceeding the pace of inflation. But if I've got something confused in this paragraph, that just reflects how insane the PAEA was.
@@Great_Olaf5 _"They receive no tax support."_
Wrong. Every few years the post office gets into a jam so Congress bails them out with billions of dollars in tax money. Who can forget Harry Reid arguing that this was necessary because elderly people rely on junk mail to feel connected to the world.
@@Great_Olaf5 The post office gets tax support for a few things, like delivery to military addresses and mail service for Congress. But for the most part, you're right. For almost all their services, they're self-funded.
Also, rates are approved by a board of governors who are not postal employees. USPS asks permission to raise rates and the board approves or says no.
Mail/ Post. This reminds me of something funny. We had a mailbox down at the end of the driveway. And a rare smart poodle who enjoyed the daily voyage to the mailbox, and a romp in the front yard. She was smart enough to know the word "mail". We started spelling it. In desperation, we resorted to saying "post". That eluded her, as well as "postman".
Oddly enough, all the drop mail boxes have been removed in our town except for one right in front of the post office.
Grimsby prison hahahaha that did make me giggle
And of course if there were it would be called HMP Grimsby. But then only people on one side of the Atlantic would get the joke.
Funny you mentioned "stand by me" I was just at the bridge with the train scene 2 weeks ago. It's next to beautiful Burney Falls in Burney California.
Lucky you. A famous scene from a classic film. Or movie as Americans say.
Sounds like Joanna Lumley's voice on the UK AOL greeting.
I think it is.
In my area of California the trend is for community mailboxes---a stand of locked boxes, usually for the entire street. The route driver pulls up to the community mailboxes and delivers each person's mail into their own (family's) box.
In the United States the guy who delivers your mail is technically known as a "letter carrier." Even if it's a woman
@TheRenaissanceman65 because I said "Guy".
Mailman too
I've been paper free for years. All of my expenses, from rent to utilities, can be paid online. I can even choose to receive my bills for water & electricity via email.
The USPS still delivers packages, but we also have UPS, FedEx, and DHS.
Frankly 95% of what I get in my mail box is junk mail.
I understand things are different in rural areas in the U.S., so they still need the Post Office.
Why shouldn't the USPS deliver packages? Just curious! here in Switzerland the Swiss Post does both but the mail carrier (Pöstler) only brings letters. There is DHL and UPS but they mostly deliver to firms
@@Leenapanther The USPS does deliver packages. They have a limit on the size and weight and are generally more expensive and slower than UPS and FedEx.
They're not that different. Even receiving some of my bills by mail, 95% of my mail is still junk mail. I live in a town of less than 2,000 people and I share a mailbox with 9 other addresses. It's like an apartment mailbox bank, but on a pillar set into cement, on the corner of the block.
The American roadside mailboxes were originally used for rural delivery. Places where the driveway alone could be a half mile. Cities used to mostly have British style mail slots or a wall mounted box next to the door. As someone said walking delivery routes vs driving ones. As the suburbs spread it became faster and more efficient to go with pure driving routes and curbside delivery boxes.
Laurence, if British television programs are to be taken as any sort of an indicator of accuracy of British life (art follows life, and life follows art they say), then you missed one good difference. According to the television programs I watch, they depict British Post as being fast AND reliable!! Having lived in America for a decade plus now, I'm sure it's no secret to you that U.S. Mail is ANYTHING BUT fast OR reliable!!! Ha!! To say otherwise is enough to make a cat laugh! 🤩😅😂 👍
If Bill & Ted changed the past & America & Brittain didn't separate... would their time traveling Phone booth turn red?
American mailboxes only have rounded tops so they'll shed water in the rain.
I was told because the mail slot has to be able to swing open while the part behind it swings up. The rounded top allows for no gaps so someone can't fit anything in there to steal mail. Maybe both?
@@haroldwilkes6608 it may be both. It wouldn't have been hard to have built the top up a bit to accommodate the swinging door and still left it with a flat top, or even to put a peaked "roof" on it like a house. So you're probably right that it is both.
Some American homes have mailboxes near the door, a slat inside the door, post office boxes at the post office, or an independent mailbox close to the road.
I lived in an apartment in a one of the inner-ring suburbs of Cleveland growing up and we had a big ganged mailbox just inside the entrance. Each suite had its own mailbox in the set which was opened with a key. I later moved to a suburb to the east of Cleveland and we had a mailbox on the house. I now live in one of Cleveland's southern suburbs and my house has a mail slot that is bolted shut and a mailbox on a post at the street. As others have mentioned USPS likes to do motorized deliveries where the carrier drives the route which requires mailboxes at the street. Converting from a walking to a driving route is easy for the Post Office but a PITA for the homeowners who have to have mailboxes installed.
Suburbs with no sidewalks. I wondered why there were pillars, bricks and sometimes boulders around the mailboxes. Hey I grew up in the inner city... Finally realized one trip out to the "boonies" that the lack of streetlights made it very likely that someone would strike that mailbox. And then there are the snow plow drivers...
AOL in Britain changed the wording to "You have email" in Joanna Lumley's lovely tones.
😂 When I see you these days I affectionately want to call you Shaggy (from Scooby Doo) 😊👍
If you are mailing a normal envelope, in America you can put it right in your own mailbox, and the mailman will take it when he comes around. Many mailboxes have those little red flags on, which you can put up to alert your carrier that there is out-going mail.
The AOL lady always used to say "You have Email" to me.
Never knew you lived in the Observation Level of the Willis Tower, Laurence (at least, according to the return address on your post to Uncle Toby!)
It's not too different. We do call it the "post office", its official name is the United States Postal Service, and you'll sometimes see "postage and handling" instead of "shipping". In America, Post Office Boxes (aka P.O. Boxes) refer to a mailbox at the post office, often used by businesses or those who don't wish to give out their home address.
American mailboxes look exactly, and I mean exactly, like British public litter bins: same size, same shape, same legs, same rounded top, although the flap to put your rubbish through was a different size, and of course the door for street cleaner wasn't lockable. They were galvanised steel and painted all sorts of colours, but mostly yellow or green. They were very sturdy and were found all over the UK. Although obsolete now, they lasted to a great age because they were so well made but they've almost all died out now.
I've always known fire extinguishers to be red, yet in Swaziland (eSwatini), they're blue
You didn't mention how the UK stamps don't have the country's name on them, unlike every other country, perhaps because the Royal Mail was first in the world (or at least their stamps were first, IDK).
Coins aswell!
Perhaps the American post box wishes it was a TARDIS.
This gives me an amazing idea for holloween it.......... thank you
*Mail chute, not shoot. A mail chute is a long, vertical tube that you drop your mail in (through a slot) that leads to a collection box (either on the first/lobby floor or in a basement level that has "service access") and is found in multi-story office buildings as well as some hospitals & government buildings. It's suggested that you don't put boxes, over-size envelops or anything fragile into a mail chutes for obvious reasons.
Mail boxes are red in Italy, and they are shaped like shallow rectangles set up on posts. They have a narrow slit to admit only letters.