Why are USPS drop-off boxes blue?

[lazie fo0]

I have an extra credit opportunity in my business law class and i can't seem to find the answer as to why USPS drop-off boxes are made blue?

Does anyone know?

[Year's_End]

I just googled my ass off and found out a whole bunch of shit about drop boxes and not a whole lot about the blue except that the US boxes were initially dark green, then red and blue, then all blue with white lettering.

[lazie fo0]

lol i'm trying to google too but nothing's coming up either..thanks for trying!

[crooked I]

i tried, the 4th result on google linked to this topic lol

[lazie fo0]

lol no wonder why he made this extra credit..

[radix]

I really don't know, but I'll venture a guess. My guess is the picked one of the USPS colors. The USPS primarily uses blue and white:





White mailboxes would be hard to see after a heavy snowfall. Again, just a guess though. They could have also chosen red, but they don't use it as conspicuously or as frequently as blue.

[lazie fo0]

dude your guess is as good as any..i will go with this if nothing else comes up. Thanks

[nightkhan]

found it

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sourc...iu9BCoiYaSizOw

[lazie fo0]

nice work bro this should do it.. thanks

can mods delete thread so my fellow students won't find the answer

[radix]

Originally Posted by nightkhan

found it

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sourc...iu9BCoiYaSizOw

Interesting, it says that the new color scheme was adopted in 1971, but it doesn't really say why blue was chosen.

[lazie fo0]

true..hope he gives me credit for having the past history though lol

[TommyK]

probably because blue is part of the american colors (Red, white and blue) and fire fighters took red so the postal service got left with white and blue.

[.:bHd:.]

I would say to create uniformity in design. Their color theme is blue, UPS uses brown so their drop boxes are brown.

[BTM]

It all started in notoriously corrupt Chicago in the late 60s. Mayor Richard J. Daley was approached by a still unnamed yet prominent interest group member, whose company supplied industrial paint applications. Daley was presented with a strange consequence of the member's supply chain management (in place no doubt due to one of Daley's shady, back door deals) - they were extremely overstocked on blue paint.

As fate would have it, Daley had just contracted his second cousin's nephew's failing mailbox company to replace all of the public mailboxes in the Chicago, presenting him with about as easy a corrupt deal he's ever made. The "success" of the blue painted mailboxes in Chicago did not go unnoticed, and the rest is history.






























LOL I really have no idea...

[Feyd]

Originally Posted by BTM

It all started in notoriously corrupt Chicago in the late 60s. Mayor Richard J. Daley was approached by a still unnamed yet prominent interest group member, whose company supplied industrial paint applications. Daley was presented with a strange consequence of the member's supply chain management (in place no doubt due to one of Daley's shady, back door deals) - they were extremely overstocked on blue paint.

As fate would have it, Daley had just contracted his second cousin's nephew's failing mailbox company to replace all of the public mailboxes in the Chicago, presenting him with about as easy a corrupt deal he's ever made. The "success" of the blue painted mailboxes in Chicago did not go unnoticed, and the rest is history.

Interesting theory...

But my version would go more like: Some fat-ass ungrateful postal employee (IE just about all of them) was sent to the store to buy paint and repaint some of the drop boxes because they were rusting.

Since this postal employee had never had to work a day in their lives they were really pissed at the suggestion of doing so because of some huge entitlement complex (IE most of America).

He/she then went to the store to buy paint and instead of buying green, they got blue so that they could "teach the man a lesson". Since postal employees work without impunity, it really made no difference what color was chosen green/blue/red/orange since they wouldn't get fired/reprimanded/demoted/fined, etc. for doing so. (Thank you Postal Union)

Now since some of the mail boxes were blue and some were green the local government decided to paint everything in blue because if they didn't the Postal Union was going to file a complaint with the city for challenging the intelligence of one of their employees and sue for punitive damages.

As luck would have it, it was an election year. The mayor couldn't have this become a public issue so they painted all of them blue and gave the postal employee (the one who fucked up) a promotion for "suggesting" the idea of painting all the mail boxes blue in the first place.

[Maestro]

Guys, this is extra credit for a business law class, so there must have been a legal reason the move to blue. I get the reason it is not red since all fire call boxes which use to be around all major cities were red at one time so have dropbox paint red would cause confusion. The professor is probably looking for the legal case or some law that that might have past that force the change to Blue. I know the postal service use green boxes for the mail person to pick up their local deliveries each day, they stay green long into the 70's and into the 80's.

I think the clue is when they re-organized which was probably some sort of legislation that made the occur they probably said the boxes had to be blue since it does not appear to be a post master edict.

There is obviously something more to this story than what is stated in the word document.

have you looked here

http://www.usps.com/lawdept/welcome.htm

I bet you can call them or email that question

You could also look here or ask them

http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/

[bernjee82]

maybe it is a standard set by the Universal Postal Union which the US is a member of? if you go to the UPN website, it has a blue color scheme, perhaps blue is the international color scheme for postal? if you ever notice, envelopes has red/blue/white trimming around the edges.

[ABQ325i]

If it is a question being asked in a law class then I'm sure it was part of a retail agreement between USPS and one of the package delivery companies where each agreed to use pre-determined colored mailboxes to avoid public confusion.

[lazie fo0]

assignment was due Thursday so i wrote some bs about the past and other tidbits that you guys provided ...once the prof corrects it we will know the answer. Thanks guys