It’s the holiday season, which means delivery drivers will be hustling Christmas gifts with dangerous Grinches lurking.
Recent robberies and carjackings of delivery drivers have put a spotlight on the threats they face as they handle the rush of shipments and presents. Drivers for Amazon, FedEx and UPS have all been targeted over the past month.
The U.S. Postal Service is also vulnerable, with assaults on postal workers up 231% over the last three years, according to the Postal Police Officers Association.
Per Postal Service data, 412 mail carriers were robbed in 2020. In just the first half of this year, 305 employee robberies have been reported. Armed robberies of letter carriers increased sharply between 2018 and 2021, rising from 36 to 154 reported incidents, according to the United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS).