Dog Bites Biggest Cause of Postal Worker Injuries Last Year

Dog bites were a leading cause of injuries involving postal employees in 2012. The risk to postal workers from dogs does not seem to have changed much from previous years. Almost every year postal workers are at some of the highest risks of dog bites.

In 2012, apart from dog bites, slip and fall accidents were one of the leading causes of postal worker injuries.The information came from a new report released by the Government Accountability Office. According to the report, in 2012, United States Postal Service workers reported an injury rate of approximately 5.44 injuries for every 100 employees. Most injuries that postal workers suffered on their mail route between 2009 and 2012 were due to slip and fall accidents and dog bites.

In fact, letter carriers and mail workers are some of the biggest victims of dog bites every year in the United States. The only other category of Americans who are at a higher risk than postal workers are children.

Every year, the United States Postal Service draws attention to the fact that its workers are at a high risk of dog bites. The agency specifically requests owners of dogs to make sure that their animals are restrained, or confined in the yard, or in a room in the house, during the postal worker’s daily rounds. It is also important to place warning signs at the entrance of your property, informing mail workers that you have an animal on the premises.

In spite of all these efforts, and in spite of all precautions, every year, mail workers suffer a disproportionate number of injuries in dog bite attacks. Most of these injuries may be minor to moderate, but few can be very serious and can even result in fatalities.