Postbox in Bedfordshire sealed up after dog waste put in it

[POSTMAN]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-b ... s-59334652


The Royal Mail sign has been posted on the pillar box in Church End, Hockliffe

Tape and a sign have been stuck on the pillar box in Church End, Hockliffe, Bedfordshire.

The notice by Royal Mail read "due to members of the public putting dog waste in this pillar box, we have had to seal this box until further notice".

People in the village said two bins, for post and dog waste, were "close together", the same colour and people sometimes got confused.

A Royal Mail spokesman said: "It is unacceptable that our postmen and women should have to experience this when removing the mail."


The red post box is close to a red dog waste bin and a green waste bin

Maria, a dog walker who did not want to give her surname, said: "They're too close together and they're both exactly the same colour."

However, she speculated that "sometimes the dog waste bin is full, so somebody may have thought it was funny" to put it in the Royal Mail box.

She added it was clear what they are both for, but thought if the waste bin was a different colour it might help.

Jim Comb, from the village, said he had seen people go to put waste in the letter box but then realised and "changed their mind".

"I don't think it's done on purpose; it's just the two bins are too close together and [people] get confused without thinking," he said.

"I've come close to doing it myself and then realised."

He believed one of the red boxes should be moved.

Royal Mail said: "We apologise to our customers for any inconvenience this may cause, but the safety of our staff and security of the mail is paramount."

[POSTMAN]

I'VE BEEN POSTING MY LETTERS IN THE DOG POO BOX FOR TWO YEAR

2011

WHEN short-sighted pensioner Alf Spence tottered down to his local postbox to send a card, he hoped he hadn’t missed the last collection.
But as he popped the envelope through the little slot a concerned passerby looked at him with a stunned expression.
The Good Samaritan tapped befuddled Alf, 91, on the shoulder and explained to him that he wasn’t stood in front of a postbox but had in fact posted his great-grandson’s birthday card into a council DOG POO waste bin!

[Norfolk 'N' Chance]

On the surface of it, it seems like a classic case of poor design that leads people to a "mistaken action" - doing the wrong thing on the belief that it was the right action. In other words a human factor. The root cause however is the management failings in the siting of a similar looking red receptical in very close proximity to the post box, which must have been there first. Probably no thought at all was given to the thought of confusion of two similar looking recepticals.

Trying to understand why people make human errors like this is complex. In using the analogy of machines, there is a certain amount of predictable errors/faults that can occur. These could be due wear and tear on parts over time or the technology itself being incapable of performing a task to the ideal level of accuracy.

“Human error” is similar in that sometimes the desired outcome doesnt happen and the action leads to an unwanted/unplanned outcome. Whilst we cant totally rule out that someone put dog mess in the post box deliberately. (i.e. a Willful Violation). The fact that the picture shows two red similar recepticals does create an environment of ambiguity for errors. The mistaken action, isn’t a conscious decision – it’s an unintentional fault, peoples eyes and brain see what they want to see. They are looking for a red dog waste bin and see a red bin (albeit the postbox). The fact that its the wrong receptical is ignored by the brain as the mistake is positively reinforced as the brain confirms the eyes have seen the red bin, and initiates the hand to place said item in the red bin. Its is an inherent part of the human brain's way of processing the tasks it’s given.

As i said above the route cause is the placement and similar nature of the red dog waste bin. These are management failings that could have been designed out to avoid the error occurring.

[Tman]

" Management failings?" Really? The sad knackers of society have been posting anything and everything into post boxes long before anyone ever dreamed that picking up their dog sh*t was a sensible thing to do.
Clearly they must really be as "thick as sh*t" in Bedfordshire if they can't tell those two boxes apart, or get confused by which is which.

[Norfolk 'N' Chance]

" Management failings?" Really? The sad knackers of society have been posting anything and everything into post boxes long before anyone ever dreamed that picking up their dog sh*t was a sensible thing to do.
Clearly they must really be as "thick as sh*t" in Bedfordshire if they can't tell those two boxes apart, or get confused by which is which.

Yes really! When you look into human error and how systems are designed, its often the case that things get taken for granted and therefore overlooked. Collectively these are called management failings within the sphere of safety management and the psychology of understanding human errors.

In this case possibly the local authority is responsible for those failings.

https://www.hse.gov.uk/humanfactors/top ... anfail.htm

[grchpo]

" Management failings?" Really? The sad knackers of society have been posting anything and everything into post boxes long before anyone ever dreamed that picking up their dog sh*t was a sensible thing to do.
Clearly they must really be as "thick as sh*t" in Bedfordshire if they can't tell those two boxes apart, or get confused by which is which.

Yes really! When you look into human error and how systems are designed, its often the case that things get taken for granted and therefore overlooked. Collectively these are called management failings within the sphere of safety management and the psychology of understanding human errors.

In this case possibly the local authority is responsible for those failings.

https://www.hse.gov.uk/humanfactors/top ... anfail.htm

-
You put dog poo in bin & you put post in post box, it's not rocket science, they really must be thick as Shiite around there.

[Norfolk 'N' Chance]

You put dog poo in bin & you put post in post box, it's not rocket science, they really must be thick as Shiite around there.

Thats certainly one viewpoint and it it possibly has some merit. However a lot of research into human errors show that actually the opposite is often true.

Smarter, well trained, competent people are more prone to making silly mistakes (human errors) because of blind spots in how their brain uses logic. These blind spots exist because smart people tend to be overconfident in their reasoning abilities. Its a bit like skim reading a text and picking out key words, for them the key parts were, "place bag into red box" the brain will have conveniently ignored the wording post box and seeing a red box with and open slot was confirmation their brain to let go of the bag.

Im not making excuses for these people, but human error affects everyone and this incident has similarities with the infamous 3 mile island nuclear power plant disatser. The most famous case of a "Mistaken Action". - There were two identical control levers, one of which was the emergency shut down for the whole plant,and you guessed it the wrong lever was eventually operated! But one of the earliest warnings that there was a malfunction in the system was a control panel had a light showing the valve of concern was closed. This was glossed over by the operators as they were so used to this valve light being illuminated, that they looked for every possible other solution for the faults in the system as the disaster unfolded, even though this valve being stuck open was an obvious cause of the initial problems. - Sometimes even though something is clearly visible (in this case the red dog waste box just feet away from the post box, our brains can ignore it and focus on the wrong thing)

The point is that as daft as you may wish to view people to be, and putting dog waste in a letterbox is daft. This in all probability was not the intention. The program the persons brain was running to enable them to perform this task malfunctioned. Its common in humans and these types of mistaken action events can happen to anyone at anytime and incident data suggests that more competent people are not immune from making errors.

Has any posties out there ever posted the letters for the preceeding or following house, through the wrong door numbers letterbox? - if so was this a wilful violation (i.e. you did it deliberately) or was it a mistaken action?

[Tman]

Seems like you want to really believe these people are too stupid to help themselves?
If your scenario was valid there'd be letters in the dog shite bin.
All those strange people who have been putting hypo needles, lolly sticks, sweet and crisp wrappers, drinks cans and little pebbles in pillar boxes for years, what bins were they getting confused with then?

[grchpo]

You Cannot drop dog poo into a post box, you have to push it in thru a slot. Surely you would get an idea that something wasn't quite right. Just people being twats or as said before thick as dog poo they ``mistakenly `` shoved in a post box

[twoloops]

I've found dog s**t, syringes, loads of snails, mouse traps on string, you leave the mail fail the box & report it to your DOM, they send someone out to clean it & empty it.

[Norfolk 'N' Chance]

Seems like you want to really believe these people are too stupid to help themselves?
If your scenario was valid there'd be letters in the dog shite bin.
All those strange people who have been putting hypo needles, lolly sticks, sweet and crisp wrappers, drinks cans and little pebbles in pillar boxes for years, what bins were they getting confused with then?

Where there are no other external factors, then I agree its wilful violation - a deliberate act.