BRUSLY – Mailboxes that some say were installed too close to the road have been moved farther away from the street. One woman called 2 On Your Side after she hit a mailbox and it turns out she’s not the only one who complained.
A day after the story aired, John Berthelot says a crew came out and moved all the mailboxes.
“After you came out it took them one day to put them all on this side of the sidewalk,” he said.
The boxes are now between the sidewalk and homes along East St. Francis Street. Berthelot isn’t sure what sparked the change.
“Somebody changed their mind, I don’t know what happened,” he said.
Last week, those mailboxes were installed on a narrow strip of land between the sidewalk and the street. In some places, that piece of land is only about eight inches wide. The mailboxes were placed parallel to the street. They were so close to the road that drivers were hitting the boxes.
It’s something Lynette Rivet had never seen before. She hit one of those boxes with her passenger side mirror and damaged her brand new car.
“We were just driving, passing a vehicle on the road and BAM!” she said.
Others in the neighborhood chimed in on Facebook saying they had similar experiences; their boxes had been hit too. Berthelot seems to think the new mailbox location is better than how it was before.
“As long as they put my mail in it,” he said.
That had been the concern all along. Initially Berthelot said the postal carrier told him that she wouldn’t deliver his mail if the box is on the side of the sidewalk closest to the house. They’ve made an adjustment.
“She drives along the sidewalk,” he said.
Berthelot is getting his mail and the boxes are far out of the way to passing cars.
As far as Rivet, she has filed a claim with the United States Postal Service.
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