Post Office raises rate: Getting their two-cents worth

No, it's not a lot of unsold SUVs. It's evidence that mailmen are stylin' these days. Gone are the dorky white post office vehicles. Instead, local mailmen drive these brand spankin' new "Trail Rated" Jeep Liberty Renegades. The base model goes for about $25,850, which might help explain why the price of a first class stamp is going up 2 cents to 39 cents. At this post office alone I counted at least 35 new trucks.

I guess they could have done worse. They could have bought the bummer of all vehicles, the Hummer. The Jeep supposedly gets 18 mpg in the city, while the new, smaller H3 gets up to 16 (yeah right!). Or they could have bought a foreign vehicle. Not that this Toyota-driving city dweller has anything against foreign cars. I just think a federal agency should buy American. Especially when American car makers are offering incentives like "miles of freedom," which would pay for two-years worth of gas and scheduled maintenance. Hmm ... wonder if the post office got that sweet deal.

But now that I got started on SUVs, some questions come to mind:

1. Most SUV commercials show the truck rumbling through a jungle or up and down some rocky terrain in Utah. But the fine print at the bottom of the screen says, "Professional driver on a closed course. Do not attempt." Why not? Shouldn't I buy the damn thing because it can go through three-foot-deep puddles and over tree stumps?

2. This leads to a more important question: Why is it that, on the streets of Chicago, the vehicles that go the slowest over speed humps and pot holes are SUVs? Are the drivers really that scared that their trucks will flip over if they go more than 10 mph over railroad tracks?

3. How soon until a mailman flips his new Liberty?