A postal worker in Arizona decided to cook a steak on the dashboard of his mail truck to demonstrate how hot it gets inside the vehicle during the summer. He began cooking the partially thawed piece of meat at 10 a.m. and by 12:30 p.m the steak had an internal temperature of 142 degrees.
The postal worker detailed his experiment, along with the daily temperature readings from his truck, and sent them to Arizona state Rep. Shawnna Bolick. She wrote a letter to Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union, calling on him to launch an investigation into the conditions postal workers must endure throughout the summer months.
"It is shocking to hear of postal workers having to endure the extreme Arizona temperatures that result in delivery trucks, many of which do not have air conditioning, regularly reaching above 128 degrees," Bolick wrote. "Working conditions must be improved immediately to ensure the safety of mail carriers subjected to these dangerous temperatures."
Bolick suggests that the post office should alter delivery times during the summer so workers are not delivering mail during the hottest part of the day.