By Dave Statter – February 13, 2016
I’ve long felt blocking a fire hydrant is an enormously selfish act that shouldn’t be tolerated — especially if it’s a government vehicle doing the blocking. You would hope (and sometimes be very disappointed) that people who drive official vehicles (especially the ones that are marked) would be smart enough to set a good example for the rest of us.

When I first started STATter911.com almost nine-years-ago, I loved running videos from Jimmy Justice in New York. This guy had a camera and the balls to confront the driver of any government vehicle blocking a fire plug (check out Jimmy’s videos here). But, sadly, Jimmy Justice has not been posting videos for a long time. His replacement may be my dear friend Big Shirley (yes, you can call her Shirley).

Now, let’s see if we can convince the United State Postal Service to do the right thing on fire safety issues. While I don’t want to take this one incident and condemn an entire profession (I will leave that to cable TV news operations — and yes, I know, I just condemned an entire profession), I would hope USPS has a very clear policy with harsh penalties for hydrant blocking. If there isn’t already, there should be zero-tolerance for the postal workers endangering the lives of others with such actions.

While doing a little research (these days that’s like heavy lifting for me) I discovered that USPS makes its feelings very clear about blocking hydrants on its own property.

Below is a copy of a document called “Poster 7” with the title “Rules and Regulations Governing Conduct on Postal Service Property.” It says, “Blocking of entrances, driveways, walks, loading platforms, or fire hydrants is prohibited.” It should also be prohibited for USPS employees off Postal Service property.

I leave this topic, for now, with a warning for this USPS employee and anyone else who thinks their delivery is more important than the safety of their fellow man — look below. There, you will find two other ways that this problem can be handled. Neither is as pleasant or nice as the simple picture snapped by Big Shirley.

Source: Attention U.S. Postal Service – I hope you have zero-tolerance for this – Statter911