8 Things Ohio Delivery Drivers Wish Customers Would Do Before They Arrive
Ohio ranked third in the country for dog attacks on Postal Service carriers last year, with 287 incidents statewide.
Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus and Dayton accounted for more than 100 of them.
That’s the part that makes the news.
The rest of what a driver deals with at your address rarely gets talked about at all.
These are the things Ohio delivery drivers wish customers would do before they arrive.
1. Turning on the Porch Light
Ohio delivery drivers say a lit porch saves time on a night shift.
House numbers vanish against dark brick and vinyl siding once the sun goes down.
Every second counts.
Motion-sensor lights don’t always solve it, either.
They often flick on only once a driver is already standing at the door, not while the driver is still scanning the street from a moving car.
2. Making the House Number Easy to Spot
Delivery drivers ask for one more thing right after the porch light: A house number they can read from the street.
Overgrown shrubs, faded stick-on digits, and numbers mounted on the shaded side of a garage all send a driver circling the block twice, and neither side gets that time back.
A number in a contrasting color, or a small reflective marker near the curb, turns a guess into a two-second confirmation.
3. Typing Detailed Delivery Instructions
Delivery drivers want a filled-out instructions field waiting for them before they ever pull up, not a guess made from the curb.
DoorDash and Instacart both build that field into checkout: A blank one just means guessing.
Naming the house color, the door color, and where a car sits in the driveway saves several minutes over a bare address.
Apartment and townhome addresses need even more detail, since one building number can hide six identical doors behind it.
Guessing wastes everyone’s time.
4. Sending the Gate Code
Delivery drivers can end up stuck outside a gated community or apartment complex when nobody answers the call box.
Instacart’s delivery instructions field also takes a gate code, filled out ahead of time instead of left for a driver to guess.
A driver can’t get past a locked gate.
Texting the code the moment the app shows a driver assigned beats waiting for a call from the curb.
5. Securing the Dog
Ohio ranked third among all states last year for dog attacks on U.S. Postal Service carriers, with 287 incidents reported statewide, trailing only California and Texas.
Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, and Dayton combined for more than 100 of those attacks within city limits alone.
One bite changes everything.
A loose or unleashed dog does more than risk a bite when a carrier is already watching every yard on the route.
Leashing the dog, crating it, or bringing it inside during the delivery window keeps a driver from ever needing to make that call.
What Happens After an Ohio Dog Bites a Carrier
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) can pull mail delivery from the address that owns the dog, and sometimes from the whole street.
Service only starts back up once the owner proves the animal will stay contained during delivery hours.
Every neighbor on that suspended route ends up picking up mail at the post office window instead.
The dog’s owner can also be billed directly for the driver’s medical care, lost pay, and a torn or bitten uniform, on top of whatever a lawsuit adds later.
6. Clearing the Steps
Ohio delivery drivers spend the coldest months walking icy porches and steps.
The U.S. Postal Service’s Ohio newsroom regularly reminds homeowners to keep walkways clear of snow and ice so carriers can approach safely.
Carriers simply won’t risk it.
Columbus typically sees its first snowflakes sometime in November, with an inch or more on the ground by early December.
Many homeowners underestimate how soon winter arrives.
7. Tipping in the App
Delivery drivers do best when a customer sets a generous tip at checkout, before the order is even assigned to anyone.
DoorDash’s base pay runs as low as $2 to $10 a delivery, so that upfront tip is what a driver sees on the accept screen.
Promising cash at the door doesn’t change that math.
A 2025 Bankrate survey found that 52% of Americans always tip food delivery drivers, down from 59% four years earlier.
Tip where it counts.
Psst! How much do you know about America’s delivery history? Take our quiz and see how many you can get right.
Quiz
America’s Delivery IQ
Answer these questions on mail, parcels, and the companies that carry them. We bet you can’t get them all right. Prove us wrong?
About how long did it take a relay of Pony Express riders to carry mail roughly 1,900 miles from Missouri to California?
8. Turning on Package Tracking
Delivery drivers aren't the only party who benefits when a customer already knows exactly when a package is due.
Security.org's 2025 report estimated that 37 million packages would be stolen off American porches that year, worth more than $8 billion combined.
An empty porch after a scheduled delivery is exactly the moment that risk shows up.
Signing up for the U.S. Postal Service's Informed Delivery, or simply turning on tracking alerts inside a shopping app, lets a customer step outside the moment a driver marks the delivery complete.
That's the difference between grabbing a box off the steps and finding an empty porch an hour later.
A driver who watched a customer wave from the window before pulling away already knows the porch will still have that box on it.
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