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Comment by lucb1e | Hacker News Reader

> the vehicles have airbags, 360-degree cameras, blind-spot monitoring, collision sensors[, AC,] and anti-lock brakes — all of which are missing on the [old ones].

Woa, is driving without airbags even legal nowadays or do they drive different ones in Germany? I always thought the USPS trucks looked... utilitarian old I guess, so like they shipped them over to keep the historical branding, but I don't know if that's actually the case

Another interesting bit of the article:

> the costs of installing thousands of charging stations and upgrading electrical service, made [electric delivery vehicles] unaffordable at a time [...]. That led to a deal in which the [US] government provided $3 billion

> [they're buying] 106,000 vehicles through 2028. That included 60,000 next-gen vehicles, 45,000 of them electric models, along with 21,000 other electric vehicles

View on HN

>Woa, is driving without airbags even legal nowadays

I'm sure new vehicles require them in the US. But there's very wide latitude on safety feature requirements for older vehicles in the US.

There’s also often exceptions and issues when it comes to one agency in the government trying to enforce rules on another.

Notably, the death toll on 9/11 was made worse because the state used its authority to override the local building code which would have required more staircases and further spacing of them.

Or any locality trying to enforce payment of parking tickets from higher entities or even their own off duty officers.

And there are antique plates etc. States are generally very hesitant to forbid people to drive their cars unless there's something that poses a serious imminent threat to others.

Because not enough people own really old cars for it to be worth worrying about. And as you note, and increased endangerment is generally to the owner.

“it was legal when i bought it, so it’s legal now!”

More like it was legal when someone originally bought it. (With some caveats.)

Better than aviation: "it was legal when we got it approved it, so it's legal to manufacture now!" (decades later)

(I like the discussion about this example: https://www.flightglobal.com/airbus-challenges-737-grandfath... )

Many things are this way. The number of houses in the silicon valley that still have knob and tube wiring is kind of hilarious.

Can't build new houses with it, but grandfathered in until you have to make changes.

There's an exception for quadricycles IIRC (very small cars).

You might be thinking of UPS. USPS doesn't operate outside of the US.

> Woa, is driving without airbags even legal nowadays or do they drive different ones in Germany?

German here - as long as your vehicle matches the code requirements back when it was built, it is road legal. You're perfectly fine to ride a pre-WW2 car with only a single side mirror, no rear mirror, no airbags or any other kind of safety feature and no emission controls worth the name.

I still would not recommend it to tour such a piece of history on public roads though.

This is the case in most jurisdictions (and even the ones that do NOT permit cars older than X years - as I believe Japan does - have exceptions for historical vehicles and other purposes).

I have never seen a USPS truck here. And I think all of my imports were delivered by DHL or UPS within Germany.

I don't think USPS drives any trucks in Germany

you don't. USPS is US federal government, not a company

Congress keeps trying to privatize it, which would be a disaster and is wildly unpopular. Instead, they keep sabotaging it.

This is why it has bonkers pension requirements and constantly hemorrhages money.

Anyway, it does not operate overseas.

> Congress keeps trying to privatize it, which would be a disaster and is wildly unpopular. Instead, they keep sabotaging it.

> This is why it has bonkers pension requirements and constantly hemorrhages money.

This is not true. The Postal Service Reform Act of 2022 repealed the disastrous 2006 bill that requires the USPS to pay for their retirement funds out of revenue.

The Biden administration has really done a remarkable (well, competent, but that's remarkable for government these days) job with many of America's institutions, including the Post Office, and it's unfortunate that people don't know these things.

I'm curious. Is there anywhere I could read about what has been done? An article, a book, or whatever.

I guess you can start here... (though it doesn't mention the USPS bill.)

https://www.whitehouse.gov/therecord/

Good to know the pension thing was fixed under Biden. This administration also stopped progress on USPS privatization (which seemed pretty inevitable under Trump).

You can guess how I’ll vote, but it’s important that people pay attention to the actual actions taken by the parties, and then also remember to vote.

Prefunding pensions out of operating revenues is onerous relative to similar federal agencies, but is it really bonkers?

The main problem with pensions is that they often get funded with promises instead of dollars. Then whoever made the promise walks away and leaves the problem for others to fix.

Yes, because this is a Federal government organization, so it is backed by the Federal government/US Treasury.

So "pre-funding" pensions is nonsense because the pensions will be paid out of a) the USPS current revenues, or b) US Treasury.

Just like Social Security, which effectively "invests" in US Treasuries and redeems those bonds as required to pay current recipients.

When someone ships something to you from the US via USPS you’ll get it delivered via your local postal service, in this case Deustche Post. And vice-versa.

Are airbags required for driving in Germany?

If a German owns a 1961 BMW Isetta, is it required that it have airbags before it is driven on the roadway?

No it is not.

You can drive a model-T if you want to. They are lacking any safety features.

Begin able to only do 40mph is arguably a safety feature

The top speed of the Model T was 42 mph (68 km/h), but most roads of the time were meant for far slower animal drawn carriages.

The primary danger was plate glass windows shredding the occupants, or the gearbox bushing failing (Fords early transmission designs were interesting.) =3

They turbo-charge nicely.

And if the transmission fails so does the foot brake.

Ford sucks at transmissions even now

Airbags weren't invented until many decades after the Model T. And cars were already exceeding 100mph by the 20s. Airbags remained a premium, nonrequired feature until the 90s iirc.

Also related, the US mandated backup cameras for new vehicles in 2018 while Europe took until 2022. My uneducated guess from visiting the US is that very few people reverse-park and huge cars/SUVs have poor visibility, so the risk of backup collisions is high. I read somewhere that despite this, a lot of models in the US have had backup cameras for years, well in advance of the mandate.

In Europe, parallel and reverse bay-parking is much more common. At least in the UK, both are testable manoeuvres so everyone at least learns, even if they don't bother later. I've even worked in places where you had to back into spaces, for evacuation reasons. Last time I bought a car in the not too distance past, even ultrasonic sensors cost extra and when hiring vans, only the newest models have backup cams.

Do school buses even have seatbelts?

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