"I'd like to submit a complaint. I haven't gotten mail in a month...no, I can't think of any reason the mail carrier would skip my house." (Source)

If you're like us, you're not thinking: "Postal worker. Now that sounds like a dangerous gig." And yet, the government reports nearly 40,000 cases of injury per year (source). And that's for only 587,000 employees (source). Assuming few repeat injuries, that's a per year injury rate of six percent or higher. Yikes.

So where is all of this coming from? Paper cuts? Nope. According to the USPS safety manual, there are pretty much four top offenders (source): slips and falls, dog bites, car accidents, and improper lifting.

Lots of stuff that can go wrong, right? Perhaps that's why USPS has everything from dog tracking to seminars to safety checklists to keep these people safe. As with any job, though, personal responsibility can go a long way in making sure you never have to start a scary story with "See, this one time, I was delivering a packet of recipes to Mildred, when—"

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