Sarah Aldersea lives in a rural neighborhood called Happy Valley west of Cheyenne, Wyoming, but things weren’t so happy when she returned home to find her mailbox scattered on the ground in three pieces.
It’s not the first time her mailbox has been smashed by a car or truck. It’s happened before, and each time the culprit has simply left the scene without so much as a note of apology.
“I figure they were coming from Happy Jack, up the road,” she told Cowboy State Daily. “So, I’m sure whoever it was, they probably don’t even live out here.
"It’s probably someone who was up camping or fishing or who knows what, and they probably came down around the corner too fast and lost control.”
Accidents happen, Aldersea said. She gets that, but it’s the lack of taking responsibility that really gets her.
“Had someone done that and just even come by the next day or even left a note that was like, ‘Hey I’m sorry I hit your mailbox,’ I probably really wouldn’t care,” she said. “Just own up to it.”
It’s also somewhat scary that people are driving so fast through Happy Valley that they can’t even avoid a mailbox, she said.
That had Aldersea taking to Facebook to rant about the issue.
“To whoever took out our mailbox on 210 by the fire station, first off, slow down and pay attention,” she wrote. “There are children and animals that live on this road and, secondly, do the right thing and replace it.”
Even Mail Carriers Have Hit Happy Valley Mailboxes
Aldersea’s post drew comments from neighbors and other members of the Happy Valley community who assured her she’s not alone.
Lots of people in the community have experienced the same thing.
“Mine was hit, like, four times in the first few months (after moving to Happy Valley),” Cody Campbell told Cowboy State Daily. “And I’m 60, so I couldn’t continue to pick up large slabs of cement.”
Another option Campbell briefly considered is putting up a big telephone pole. But she’s seen where even that doesn’t work.
“People hit them anyway,” she said.
So she stuck with a regular mailbox, but she talked with her carrier about moving the box into her driveway instead so it would be a little farther away from the road. The carrier could still drive up into her driveway and access the box without exiting the vehicle.
The carrier, who was a woman, agreed that would be OK.
Everything went well for a while, until one day the woman was sick and another mail-carrier filled in for her.
“He evidently couldn’t handle the maneuver, because he took out my mailbox,” Campbell said. “The damage to their postal truck was quite obvious.”
No One Is Responsible
Campbell called the woman several times about her destroyed mailbox, but her calls were ignored.
She tried calling the main post office as well. It was almost impossible to get ahold of someone there, but through persistence, she eventually managed to get through to someone.
“That’s when they told me, ‘Well, those are subcontractors. We have no control over them. There’s nothing we can do,’” Campbell said.
Campbell then went back to texting her mail carrier about the issue.
“She finally did respond, and she did say it was her son, and she offered to fix it by moving me over to the community box over by the school,” Campbell said. “But she neglected to tell the main post office, so everything was fine for a little while, but when she quit, a new contract person took over and my mail was lost for about three weeks.”
Campbell has since come to believe her mail was probably among a bunch of mail later found dumped in a ditch in the Happy Valley community.
Campbell started making calls to the post office about her lost, dumped mail only to be told again that the mail carrier couldn’t be held responsible this time either — because her mailbox had been moved.
The fact her mailbox had been moved in the first place because it was destroyed by a mail carrier seemed to be lost on the post office’s management.
Why You Shouldn’t Make Your Mailbox Into A Fortress
With such frustrations floating around in the Happy Valley community, it’s easy to see why people were telling Campbell she should just turn her mailbox into an immovable fortress.
Get a pipe and fill it full of concrete, one commenter suggested on her Facebook post about the issue.
Both Campbell and Aldersea acknowledge the allure of such an idea, but Campbell believes that probably just creates new problems.
What happens if someone has an accident, hits the immovable mailbox, and dies? she wondered.
“Many years ago, I saw a movie about a kid who would take a baseball bat as he was driving down the road to a vehicle or to a mailbox, and hit the mailbox with a bat,” she said. “And so, this man had filled his mailbox with cement, because he was tired of it getting damaged, and it shattered the kid’s arm and his shoulder.”
In the movie, the man is sued for damages because it’s clear from the chain of events the man intentionally did something he knew was likely to cause someone harm.
That has Campbell wondering if someone hit a fortified, immovable mailbox and died, what kind of liability would that create for the mailbox’s owner?
It’s an excellent point to consider, according to Laramie County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy of Support Services Chance Walkama.
“If you intentionally do something to, you know, I think if your intent is to fortify your mailbox to the point where it could stop somebody in their tracks, and you know they’re driving at a high rate of speed, then yeah, there’s probably going to be some liability there if whoever you potentially injured was to piece all that together,” he said. “And what we really want is for the person to stop, not get injured.”
Walkama added he’s also seen the end result of people taking the law into their own hands with such steps, and inevitably the person who set such a trap is the one who feels terrible in the end, particularly if the injuries kill someone or maim them for life.
“I think it’s just the mischievous side of us thinking that’s the right thing — until someone gets hurt,” Walkama said.
The Broken Mailbox Theory
Most of the time, Campbell and Aldersea said people in Happy Valley are not reporting the problems with their mailboxes getting destroyed.
They’ve learned to accept it as part of living life in rural Wyoming, believing that these problems are probably common to anyone who lives in the countryside.
Their thinking goes that the police are awfully busy to be responding to hit and runs involving mailboxes in a world filled with more serious crimes like drugs, domestic violence, robberies, and the like, and how would the police be able to do something about it anyway?
But Walkama said that’s not how the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office sees this issue. They think of it more like the “broken windows” effect.
“You know, if you allow the broken windows to be in your neighborhood, it devalues the neighborhood,” he said. “You’re going to see more crime and more issues.
"So, you want to concentrate efforts every now and then on some of these things that people feel are less high-level crimes to let them know that you don’t get away with that here.”
Technology makes it easier to do something about these kinds of things now, Walkama added.
It’s enabled the department to work with neighborhoods to set up trail cameras and catch people who are committing even nuisance crimes, including mailbox assaults, whether it’s a passenger with a baseball bat or a hit-and-run driver.
“I get people thinking that we’re always focused on the bigger crimes,” Walkama said. “But handling the smaller ones really matters too. It helps reduce the bigger crimes from happening.
"And that’s why we focus on, like, traffic, for example. We’re out there, we call it ‘flying the flag or the banner,’ but showing people that we’re out and about and active in a community and easily accessible to prevent some bigger crimes from happening.”
Homeowners could also set up their own system of trail cameras if they prefer, and police can work from those images to identify the culprits, Walkama said. Those images can be posted on Facebook so an identity can be crowd-sourced.
“I really recommend the deer hunter cameras, because they’re all-weather,” he said. “They’ll be great, especially now, in the elements. And then just testing it to make sure you’re hitting the right angles.”
The angle needs to be set so it captures a clear image of whoever was driving the car, or whoever was sitting in the passenger sit swinging the baseball bat at a mailbox.
Welcome To The Happy Jack Speedway
Most of the time, the mailbox issues in Happy Valley don’t appear to be someone out on a joy ride with their trusty bat at the ready, taking a swing at all the mailboxes.
The issue seems to be related more to people going out to Happy Jack Road and opening up the engine to see how fast the car will run.
“That’s something we know happens,” Walkama said. “Again, it’s not like a group of people, it’s just random. I’ve got a new car. Or I want to drive fast, so I’m going to go out there and do that.”
While it’s not what Walkama would describe as a frequent occurrence, it happens enough that some locals have taken to calling the road Happy Jack Speedway.
But while it may seem like it’s a safe stretch, looks are deceiving, Walkama said, and there is invariably at least one fatality every other year or so related to speeding on that road.
“The road does have a little sway to it,” Walkama said. “And so, if you’re not paying attention, then it’s easy to go off the road there.”
Happy Jack is a regular for traffic enforcement, Walkama said, but, like the vehicular mailbox assaults, he said the department appreciates hearing from neighborhoods if they feel something has become a particular problem, so they can look at stepping up enforcement in a particular area.
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
