Trucks Hauling U.S. Mail Frequently Violate Safety Rules. ​Crashes Killed ​79 People Since 2020

USPS, under pressure on costs, contracts trucking companies at cut rates and pushes them to meet aggressive delivery schedules

By Christopher Weaver of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"For years, the U.S. Postal Service has faced competition from the likes of United Parcel Service Inc. and FedEx Corp. To fight them off, it hired outside trucking companies at cut-rate prices, required them to meet aggressive schedules and then looked the other way when they ran afoul of highway safety rules, a Wall Street Journal investigation found.

The result has been deadly. Postal contractors have been involved in at least 68 fatal crashes that killed 79 people in the past three years, according to police crash and inspection records.

Nearly 50 long-haul trucking contractors that moved mail for the Postal Service had safety records so poor that another arm of the federal government, the Transportation Department, put them on probation, DOT data show. 

Particularly common among the postal contractors were violations of DOT rules meant to guard against fatigue by limiting how many hours truckers can drive. About 39% of trucking companies that hauled U.S. mail busted those limits and related rules at a rate DOT says raises red flags, compared with 13% of for-hire trucking firms that were inspected during the time period, a Journal analysis of DOT scoring data covering 2021 and 2022 found.

USPS tolerated the violations, and according to industry representatives, set unrealistic expectations for speedy deliveries that at times led the truckers to skirt the rules. The Journal identified dozens of cross-country trips listed in postal contracts with deadlines that would require drivers to stay on the road longer than allowed, unless companies cut into their profits by using multiple drivers."

"USPS recently told the office of a member of its congressional oversight committee that it didn’t track serious crashes by its trucking contractors, according to an email from February reviewed by the Journal."