You have seen LLVs on routes in cities or large towns and those Long Life Vehicles do belong to the USPS and are maintained by them. You will NEVER see one of those on a real rural route, because of costs. Instead, on a true rural route, out in the country, one with dirt roads, bad mountainous conditions, etc, the carrier is paid an EMA (Equiptment Maintenance Allowance). This amount is calculated four times a year, based on prices three months previously. Theoretically this EMA is to pay for the vehicle, mechanical maintenance, tires and insurance. I WISH this were true- it use to cover quite a bit of it but with what costs are now? No way. With prices for a new Jeep Wrangler factory RHD starting at 29,000 we are all nursing whatever we drive along the route as long as possible. Unfortunately,my experience has been that 72.7 route miles a day, six days a week, stop and go driving will destroy one pretty quickly in spite of religiously regular maintenance. I have to pay to have anything done to mine and I always do my best to keep my Jeep in shape. Unfortunately, in the case of mine(2008 Wrangler RHD) it was a mess the day it was made and has gone down hill from there. Plus, it drinks gas- averaging $25 a day now to run. All of the above is why you won’t see a USPS owned LLV on a true rural route. It costs them too much and it’s cheaper to hand the cost over to us, let us use our vacation days if we are broke down, pay for repairs or use our time at home working on it ourselves and pay us a small amount of the true costs.
You are talking about contract carriers I think. They bid on a route, either bulk delivery to offices, or routes with no career carrier that have been given over to a contract where bids are taken for a lump sum to deliver that mail. No benefits, no nothing.
I am a rural route carrier. This is a career position and I explained the EMA in a post above. Anyone who thinks we are pocketing anything out of that is badly mistaken. Mine is barely covering my gas a day at this point, much less the vehicle costs, tires, etc.
The biggest problem we have is finding a vehicle that can take the punishment of mail delivery, is rhd and affordable. Most carriers destroy themselves reaching across as long as they can take it, simply because there is no choice other than the expensive, terribly built Jeep or a double steering wheel conversion. I had a RHD Subaru for years, heck I’ve gone through several Subarus over the years and that RHD was the perfect mail car- rode good, 4WD, tough and easy on gas. Sadly they quit making them in 1999. My next mail car will be another Forrester with a conversion I hope. It’s sure not gonna bre another junky Jeep.
Our current EMA is 67 cents a mile.
My info on the route carriers comes from the route carriers themselves. (I’m talking about the Subaru or Jeep driver making 400 or 500 stops a day stuffing envelopes into boxes on a post.)
One lady who took over a local route bought a mail carriers trade in Subaru for the route and while I don’t remember the sum she quoted as receiving per month from the USPS I remember it was a pretty decent one.
Hardly any of them ever brought their cars to the shop for anything unless it was a warranty fix or something out of their league. (head gaskets, transmission repair, etc.)
Maybe policies have changed. With USPS stupidity at the top (not you) I’m not surprised at anything. I live in a small outlying town and when the postmaster retired a few years back the USPS was actually sending a temporary postmaster to run the 1 person post office.
Instead of getting someone local or installing the part timer who lived across the street the USPS chose to pay the temporary PM mileage at 250 miles a day plus turnpike fees.
They did this for going on 3 years so do the math on that at 5 days a week.
What happened to the temp PM after they left here? They moved them closer to home and for the last few years that temp has been accruing mileage at about 150 miles a day instead of 250. Wonder why the USPS is in the red?
“finding a vehicle that can take the punishment of mail delivery”
What punishment? The stopping, the starting, the turning, the going?
exactly- all of that for, on my route 5 or so hours a day,476 boxes, six days a week, on lots of gravel, dust, dirt, etc. I’ve always said we should have hour meters instead of mileage odometers because there’s a lot of idle time on the engines.
The EMA pay seems decent until you calculate exactly what keeping that vehicle on the route actually costs. Our EMA is never as much as what the post office budgets themselves for their LLVs that only run in cities.
And I have to laugh at the post office story you relate! How true. I suspect that the same is true of any very large company, the folks making decisions have no working knowledge of the actual JOB.
For a look at some of the issues facing us with our Jeeps check out this thread on the 08 Wrangler (remember we have no other choice for a factory RHD)
http://rural-mail-talk.581397.n2.nabble.com/2008-rhd-jeep-wrangler-td3506669.html#none