I’ve heard that the only vehicles allowed by law only to go through a red light is a US Mail truck and that police really aren’t supposed to. Any truth to this?
I can understand the police having to run red lights (when safe to do so ), but I can’t understand why postal vehicles would need to. Sounds like a UL.
Nope. Cite? My wife, formerly disgruntled postal worker.
My husband is a letter carrier and is expected to follow the rules of the road when driving his truck on his route. He does mention that depending on the police officer, most often he will get a pass on things like temporarily parking his truck in a not legal parking spot (too close to a fire hydrant, in a loading zone, etc.) just to deliver the mail, if there are no open legal spots available.
Since the theory espoused does not even address ambulances and fire trucks, I’d say right off that it sounds like hooey to me.
I went to traffic safety school for a speeding ticket back in college. There was a guy in the class in his 40’s who drove a newspaper delivery truck in the East Bay (Walnut Creek, California). He said that standard practice when delivering papers at 4 a.m. was to treat stop lights as stop signs. He got a ticket for running a red light when he was substituting for a guy who drove in San Francisco, where they don’t follow the red light = stop sign practice. The teacher asked if he had learned anything from this, and he said, “Yeah, I’m not going to sub in San Francisco any more.”
As I understand it, postal employees, being federal agents, are exempt from state and local traffic law enforcement during the performance of their duties. However, there is a standing order from the Postmaster General that states that postal employees shall, at all times during the performance of their duties, observe all pertinent local traffic law. So a postal employee who drives his or her vehicle in a manner inconsistent with local traffic law violates postal service regulations and can be held accountable. If, however, a postmaster were to specifically order a carrier to violate a traffic regulation, the carrier who did so would be thus immunized by that order. (A postmaster who did so would face serious consequences if the order was not supported by some solidly legitimate reason.)
There are laws that state that it is illegal to “impede” the delivery of the mail, but routine enforcement of the traffic code does not amount to an “impediment” sufficient to violate this law. Most of the ULs and false claims regarding the supposed sanctity of postal trucks arise from (deliberate) misinterpretations of this law.
Sounds like a variation on the UL that mail trucks have the right-of-way over emergency vehicles.
Sorry, but all federal employees must obey all federal, state and local laws – traffic or otherwise – while performing their duties and on their own time. Any exceptions to this must be specifically noted as congressional law and/or federal regulations.
I am not aware of any federal supervisor – postmaster or otherwise – who can legally force a federal employee to violate the law. Such an order is unlawful in the first place.
To amplify this a little, according to U.S. Forest Service policy, fire engines are not to exceed the speed limit even when responding to fires.
USPS Employees are not exactly Federal Employees, they are employees of a Government Protected Monoploy. It is a civilian government agency, the last of it’s kind. The employees enjoy many benefits of Federal Employees. Odd setup. Based on the Postal Code of 1872, back when monopolies were not a bad thing.
Sorry, this is wrong.
Postal employees are indeed required to obey all state and federal laws, including the one that says they have to stop for red lights, but they’re not required to do so because the Postmaster General has given them some kind of “standing order”–they’re required to do so because it’s the law, period.
I’m not aware of any legal principle or precedent that exempts any federal employees from having to obey the law. In a word–huh? If that were true, then we’d have all sorts of civil servants like U.S. Geological Survey GS-322-3 Clerk-Typists running red lights and claiming that they were exempt.
The Straight Dope: When asked if mail trucks can legally run red lights, The Better Half, a veteran of 18+ years delivering mail , guffaws loudly and said, “Hardly. It’s right there in the manual, the M-41–you have to obey all traffic laws.”
I love the Internet. Ta daaa! The M-41 Postal Employees manual. Beware, it’s a PDF file. The relevant passage is found in section 812.2 under Safety Practices, on page 96.
http://www.nalc.org/depart/cau/pdf/manuals/m41.pdf
That’s meant as a tactful reminder, not an official “standing order” countermanding some already-established federal exemption somewhere.