Christopher Weaver of The Wall Street Journal tells his readers that a inspector general’s report faults safety vetting of long-haul contractors for the Unites States Postal Service. The agency said it is improving. Weaver writes:
The U.S. Postal Service’s long-haul trucking contractors were in crashes that killed at least 89 people from late 2018 through 2022 and the agency long failed to track such incidents, according to a new report by the mail service’s inspector general.
The postal service also sidestepped its own rules to allow unvetted drivers to haul nearly 250,000 loads of mail, the report says.
The report follows a Wall Street Journal investigation into the Postal Service’s safety practices last year that identified many of the same deficiencies—including documenting 79 deaths—among the network of private companies that help move mail around the country. […]
USPS argued its use of brokers reflected standard industry practice. It said in written responses to the inspector general that collecting such information about drivers hired by its brokers would be “of no tangible benefit” and could lead to legal risks.
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