[masraum]

Originally Posted by Chocaholic

When the flag is up, that should indicate to the homeowner that there is new mail in the box. This would save the homeowner long walks to the box only to find that the mailman hasn’t come by yet.

When the mailman sees an addressed, stamped envelope in the box, he should take it and send it. Does he really need the flag to tell him that? No! He’s opening the box anyway to leave your mail.

That is all.

Except that he's NOT opening the box unless you have mail, and you may not ALWAYS have mail (although these days with junk mail it's more often than not).

But, if for some reason, you DON'T get mail for 2-3 days, but you put a paid bill with a check in the mailbox, you might not want that bill-check sitting in the mailbox until you get more mail.

And, those folks go to a crap ton of mailboxes every day. Even if flipping the flag up only takes a second, that is not efficient.

One thing that you can do to know that you have mail is sign up for "informed delivery" https://informeddelivery.usps.com/box/pages/intro/start.action

That way you get an email that usually shows you exactly what mail you are receiving (letters and packages) each day. That way, you can even skip walking to the mailbox on days that you get nothing but junk and you don't have time or don't want to make the trip to go get mail.