OAKLAND, CA – Imagine the equivalent of driving coast-to-coast 334 times without ever leaving the city limits, and imagine doing it safely, under hazardous road conditions, gridlock, rural terrain, and with a vigilant eye on inattentive drivers.

For 25 Bay-Valley postal district drivers, logging over a million miles safely was just part of their appointed rounds. As a result of their achievement, they will be honored at the 15th annual Million Mile Club awards ceremony on Wednesday, September 11, 2013, 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., at the Oakland Processing and Distribution Center (P&DC), 1675 7th Street, Oakland, Room 229-W.

Million Mile Club Award List

What makes the million-mile achievement so astonishing is the fact that all the drivers never experienced a single preventable accident in over 30 years of driving, not even a fender-bender.

“Postal drivers are among the safest in the world,” said Bay-Valley District Manager Balwant Grewal. “The remarkable achievement of our 25 drivers demonstrates how postal employees continue to deliver on the promise of delivering their best every day with care, courtesy and the concern for the safety of others.”

Each driver will be presented with a plaque from the Safety Council and automatic membership in the prestigious National Safety Council “Million Mile Club.” The million-mile award is a lifetime enrollment, and it is given to drivers who have accumulated one-million miles or 30 years of driving without being involved in a preventable motor vehicle accident.  According to the National Safety Council, it takes approximately 30 years to accumulate one-million miles.

A common denominator, or trait, that the drivers share is defensive driving. They attribute their accident-free driving to being constantly alert for dangers, anticipating the actions of other drivers, paying attention to their surroundings, looking ahead, checking mirrors, following the rules of the road, and giving themselves enough time to react in a safe manner.

The United States Postal Service has one of the largest vehicle fleets in the world. Our drivers face hazardous road conditions, congestion, gridlock, city and rural terrain and careless drivers on a daily basis.

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A self-supporting government business, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 151 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. With nearly 32,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $65 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world’s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 35th in the 2011 Fortune 500. In 2011, the U.S. Postal Service was ranked number one in overall service performance, out of the top 20 wealthiest nations in the world, Oxford Strategic Consulting. Black Enterprise and Hispanic Business magazines ranked the Postal Service as a leader in workforce diversity. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency for six years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute.

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