Hit and Run Mailbox

Twice now. The mail carrier has ran into my mailbox with their side mirror. The latest incident require metal reconstructive surgery to get the door to even close and to look halfway normal. I will have a word with the postmaster, but don't expect much help.
Thinking about adding a 4x4 or 4x6 next to it in concrete and see how that works on side mirrors.
Any cool ideas would be appreciated? Sarge

Put a regular mailbox inside a rural mailbox and fill the void with concrete. Or mount it on an old truck coil spring.

Do a brick/ cinder block reinforced concrete "post" and enclose the regular mailbox. Go 1' deep with reinforced concrete. Here's a few ideas

I used to live on a road that turned in to 30+ miles of dirt roads known as truck trails. We used to have our mailbox busted by teenagers with baseball bats a few times a year. Virtually impossible to catch as many times it seemed to happen from a moving vehicle. We went the smaller mailbox inside of a larger one with the void filled with concrete. Seemed to work as after because I found broken shards of a baseball bat in the ditch and we never had to replace them again.

Yup, shards of bat and broken glass for us...my guess is the bat bounced back and broke the rear door window on their moms car.

Had the same hit and run mailbox assaults with a baseball bat, drove a cast fence stake alongside the box on the approach side, never lost another box,

fill it with tannerite

Tempting but a good way to end up doing jail time

Install two steel pipe either side of mail box and few inches ahead and about 6' away from the front of box. Cement them in and that will take care of any mirrors that are attached to a vehicle.

Had someone smash our mailbox with a bat.

Went out and did the small box in the big box and fill the void with concrete.

Must have been almost 20 yrs ago and no one has tried to hit it yet.

Must have some kind of deterrent effect. Truth be told, it makes me a little sad.

My dad built a mailbox after having his smashed a couple of times. It looks like a regular mailbox but is made of 3/8 steel plate on a 4x4 steel post set in concrete. Must weigh 200 lbs.

One night he heard a crash in front of the house in the middle of the night. There's a totaled pickup truck with truck parts spread out 50 yards down the road. Some drunk is standing by his truck wondering how his truck ended up in 100 pieces from just hitting a mailbox. Cops came, drunk arrested, truck towed. My dad got his front end loader out and stood the mailbox back up.

LMAO !!

Too funny.

Epic win for the good guys !!

w

I used a piece of 6" steel well casing but they made me take it down. Said it was a road hazard. The real road hazard is a teenager with dad's car and a baseball bat.
Kind of reminds me of my former daughter in law who always went out of her way to run cats over....until one day she flipped her car over in a ditch while chasing a cat. I gave her a kitten as a get well gift.

We live on a county blacktop in the middle of farm country. Ours gets hit once in a while with the big, wide tillage tools. I repair it if I can, or put up a new one if necessary. Life is too short to spend my time whizzed off over something as simple as a mailbox.

A lot of people in Michigan put a Wooden type wall on the upside of there mail box to keep the snow plow from knocking it over with snow. Some look nice and some don't but it works, it would work in your case.

A swing arm and a bat proof Poly box has worked for us.

Messing with mail boxes is a federal offense. Why isn't the law trying to outlaw these "assault bats". I never see anything on the news about it.

Most of the time it is just teenagers being teenagers. I suppose you guys never did anything as teens you aren't proud of now. I agree with #11.

Not for me. One summer, after the third time they smashed my mailbox and three it off a bridge, I brought it in at night, and set it out in the morning till they caught the kids.

The kids opened the gate to our cow pasture, cut down trees in blind spots on our road, and smashed the window in one of my trucks.

I got $250 for the window but never read the kids names in the Sheriffs reports because their families "knew people" .

I never smashed mailboxes as a kid. My dad wouldn't stand for that kind of foolishness.

I know you're joking but I was told the PO won't charge these crimes. I was told that from pd, the po station post master near me, and the state DA.

1 year ago some punk's stole a truck and went on a vandalism spree in my neighborhood. They ran the truck into a couple dozen garage doors and ran over about 15 mailboxes and randomly shot while driving. Thankfully they only ran over my mailbox. I gotta go to court soon for the driver. Funny part is as I was wrapping up the report with the officer there's a call on his radio a suspect is fleeing westbound towards my house. Told the officer that's the next street east of me. He said he wasn't worried about ther suspect running towards us. Told him neither am I I got my 45 with 14 on me. He said have a good day and went west for the next report.

I'll take a pic of the mailbox I made a little later.

" reminds me of my former daughter in law who always went out of her way to run cats over....until one day she flipped her car over in a ditch while chasing a cat"


No good deed goes unpunished I guess.

Like the ideas trappers always come up with to deal with the elements in so many things .

When I was in Law Enforcement in the 70's, we had a rash of mailboxes vs. baseball bats. At that time they were still using wood bats. There was a shrewd old farmer that had his box smashed 2 times. I handled the report of the 2nd time. Of course he wanted to know what we were doing to stop it. I told him I patrolled the back roads as much as I could, but still had other calls to handle, and that didn't leave a lot of time some nights.

Well, as I stated he was a shrewd old son-of-gun. He didn't try and repair the box, he just bought new ones. Starting my shift the day after taking my report, I drove by his house when my shift started at 11:00 PM. The wasn't any mail box on his post. I thought maybe someone had already knocked a new from the post. I pulled cruiser into his drive and got out and started looking around to see if I could find one in the weeds. Nope, none there. The next morning at the end of my shift I drove back by his farm. There he was, out mounting a new mail box to the post.

I stopped and told him I was curious that I hadn't seen a box up last night. He said, he hadn't got the new one finished. I walked over to where he was working and saw he had taken his tractor with an auger attached to the PTO, had taken 3 lengths of well casing, welded them together with a heavy steel flat piece on top with 4 holes in it. He then fabricated a mail box out 3/8 steel and attached the door from one of the old boxes along with the red flag. He had cemented the post in the ground. I told him that should slow them down. He said, that will slow them down, but this will stop them. I walked around the box to the opposite side of the box and burst out laughing. He had welded another plate to the side of the box. The sidethey always hit. He had drilled holes in the plate and inserted decking type screws through the holes that protruded out about 2 inches and spot welded them tight. He wasn't finished yet. He took a tool, like a Dremel tool and ground the threads off part way down and made sure all of the tips were extremely sharp. He must of had 25 or 30 screws mounted on the plate.

Well, I was on days off the next two days, but when I got back to work, I found out the little punks had struck again the night before, but they had caught them this time. I said let me guess where … Farmer Flemming's? Yep ! Just so happened that the culprits coming down the road saw that nice new box sitting there. and the swinger was leaning about half of body out of the car when he swung and made perfect contact. He had a good grip on the bat so he didn't drop it and impaled the bat on the screws and since these guys never stop their cars completely, they slow down just enough to get a good swing and to make a solid contact. As soon as they make contact, the driver speeds up. But this time when he sped up he jerked the swinger out of the car and he landed on his right arm, shoulder and head. He broke his arm and got a good concussion out of the fall.

When the farmer got to him, the driver and others in the car were gone. The farmer said, the swinger was sitting there crying like a little girl and the bat was still impaled on the screws. The worst part for him was he was a star athlete, senior from a town in the next county over. He not only didn't get to play sports that year, but potentially lost a scholarship. He squealed on the 3 others that had been in the car. His parents wanted to sue the farmer, but decided against it, in leu of reduced charges, both Federal and State, on their son.

The farmer was offered money for his losses, but refused. He said, the losses were worth the money, just seeing that jock sitting there crying like a little girl.

Garry-

used to have problems with someone driving over mailbox's LE told me I couldn't put in an immovable post so I welded a roughly 2 foot piece of 3/4 in plate to the pipe bottom kinda like a irregular star week or to later it was gone but I found it maybe a hundred yds down the road all bent up but lots of oil gas and exhaust parts around didn't follow the trail but no problems after that

When we first moved into our place which at that time was kind of out in the country, in the first week our mailbox got hit and the post broken. Did not have time to do a good fix so set the mailbox on top of an old kitchen stool. The next morning the mailbox and stool were laying in the ditch. Soooo.....took out 4 concrete blocks the next evening in the dark and set them on the stool with the mailbox on top. Sure enough, the next morning it was all in the ditch. Walked out there and found the blocks with metallic blue paint all over them. Set things back up again and have not had a problem since 1981.

Moosetrot

Had mine knocked down a few years back from a local drunk, the poor guy got picked up 2 weekends in a row in the same month! After that I put in a steel fence post with the plate sticking out of the dirt, they might get the mail box but they will be changing a tire down the road.

In all my years out in the country (almost all of my 62+)I have never had a mailbox vandalized. Granted there is always a first time. With the simplicity of trail cameras now a days I would put a few up around the mailbox when you replace a vandalized one, specially if it happens often. I like to put a couple on the ground in a rockpile or flower bed, mound of dirt, etc. I have several inside birdhouses at our family farms or uninhabited farmyards. Word of caution if you put them low.... grass and weeds will grow blocking your picture or triggering the camera. On my new mailbox here at my "Bottomland Acres Ranch" the post made from
heavy pipe is made to swivel at the base if it is hit by a vehicle or farm equipment.

Love the swivel post idea.

She couldn't stop and shoot it like a normal person? SMH

Used to throw beer bottles out the window of the car until one bounced back and went through the wind shield.

We put a live possum in our mailbox one time. We didn’t get no mail and Mom got a phone call instead. What fun!

Ours got hit 2 years ago . I was just coming out the door when I heard all this noise and then seen concrete flying. There is nothing like seeing a 5 gallon bucket full of concrete coming at you . My oldest son was just coming in from work and jump in his truck and then the chase was on . I went back in and grabbed my keys and following too . We finally caught up to them with a blown out tire ,crushed fender and bumper . They left the car about 5 miles down the road from the house , so we called the law and filed a report . They towed the car and charged them with leaving the scene of a accident and destruction of property. In the end we got 75.00 from the guy. Told him all he had to do was stop and tell us he hit it and charges would never be filed on him.