Rural Mail Delivery

Canada Post is committed to communicating with customers and communities affected by rural mailbox safety assessment through all stages of the assessment process. Individual customers will be informed of the findings of their assessment, and if any changes need to be made to their mailbox or mode of delivery.

Canada Post maintains a dedicated toll free telephone service to answer inquiries from customers whose rural mailboxes are being assessed. Information on the process is also available on Canada Post's web site.

Rural Mailbox Safety Assessment Information Line 1-866-501-1669

Overview

Rural Mailbox Safety Assessment Program

Today, about 843,000 Canadian residential addresses are served by rural mailboxes which represent about six percent of Canada Post’s 14 million points of delivery. Given the distances covered on the rural routes, mail is delivered by vehicle. Canada Post mail carriers pull their vehicles over at each rural mailbox, deposit the mail in the mailbox, and then merge back into traffic to proceed to the next address. This is a sequence that is repeated over a hundred times a day on each mail delivery route.

Serious questions of safety for all

The nature of many of Canada’s roads, as well as increased traffic, are making delivery of mail to many rural mailboxes potentially hazardous for Canada Post mail carriers and other drivers. Heavy traffic volumes in particular, make pulling off the road and merging back into traffic unsafe– a situation made worse where curves, hills or other obstructions make it impossible for other drivers to see the mail carrier vehicle stopped at the side of the road or merging back into traffic.

In addition, many rural mailboxes are on roads with narrow or no shoulder at all, preventing the mail carrier from getting out of the path of other drivers and forcing them to maneuver around the parked vehicle. – and increasing the risks for all. Our rural mail carriers have raised more than 2000 health and safety concerns to date. Also, Canada Post has received more than 40 Human Resources and Social Development Canada, (Labour Canada) rulings about these complaints. While Canada Post has addressed each of these complaints, the situation makes it clear that there is a need to assess workplace health and safety standards for all rural mail carriers in the country. Therefore, Canada Post, as a responsible employer and respected service provider, has initiated a rural mail safety review.

Canada Post responsibilities and obligations

Canada Post is committed to delivering the highest standards of service possible to all Canadians. As an employer and corporate citizen, Canada Post, like all Canadian companies, has a legal responsibility (under both the Criminal Code and the Labour Code) to ensure the safety of its employees and its customers. Employees who feel their duties expose them to undue risk have the right to refuse to carry out those duties. As a result, Canada Post must address increasing concerns about the safety of delivering to rural mailboxes.

While Canada Post has taken steps to increase the visibility of the vehicles driven by its Rural and Suburban Mail Carriers by equipping each with rooftop signs and flashing amber lights, this measure does not fully address the safety risks.

Assessing the safety of all rural mailboxes

To address the safety of rural mailbox delivery, Canada Post enlisted the advice of independent traffic safety specialists to develop a consistent process and detailed criteria for assessing all rural mailboxes across the country.

The safety assessment measures a range of factors which, individually or taken together, can determine whether delivering to a rural mailbox constitutes an unreasonable risk. The assessment criteria are being applied to all rural mailboxes across the country over a three-year period.

Safety assessment criteria

Research on driver behaviour was used to establish the distance, sight lines, and time required to safely stop the vehicle at a mailbox and safely merge back into traffic. When assessing a mailbox location, the following factors are measured:

speed of passing traffic
volume and type of traffic in both directions
sight lines to the rural mailbox from both directions

The assessment also measures aspects of the physical location of the rural mailbox:

width of the shoulder of the road at the rural mailbox
number of lanes of traffic and type of center line marking
legal restrictions, such as no stopping restrictions

Other considerations include whether the vehicle can be stopped completely off the road. If so, a higher volume of traffic may be acceptable from a safety perspective. If any portion of the stopped vehicle is on the road, and in the path of passing traffic, only lower traffic volumes are acceptable.

This data determines if there is:

enough “decision sight distance” for other drivers to react safely to the mail carrier vehicle pulling off the road and stopping at a rural mailbox
sufficient gaps in traffic for the mail carrier to safely merge back into traffic after making a delivery

If a rural mailbox location fails to meet any or a combination of these standards, it is considered unsafe.

Safe delivery alternatives

When a rural mailbox has been found to pose an unreasonable risk, Canada Post will advise the customer in person at their home. Canada Post’s primary objective is to maintain rural mailbox delivery, and will advise the customer if and how their mailbox can be made acceptable for delivery.

If conditions do not allow for relocating a rural mailbox for acceptable delivery, Canada Post will maintain service through one of its proven mail delivery systems, such a Community Mailbox, free lockbox service at a local post office or clustering with a neighbour.

Communicating with customers and communities

Canada Post is committed to communicating with customers and communities affected by the rural mailbox safety assessment through all stages of the process. Individual customers will be informed of the findings of their assessment, and if any changes need to be made to their mailbox or mode of delivery.

Canada Post has established a dedicated toll free customer service line to answer inquiries.

Rural Mailbox Safety Assessment Information Line 1-866-501-1669