TEXT B When the City Free
Delivery Service began in America, all the letter carriers needed were their
leather satchels. But, as the service continued into the 20th century, cities,
populations, and commerce exploded. And before long, carders’ mailbags were
stuffed to the brim, and the carders overwhelmed by the volume. Carders needed a
vehicle that could get them to their routes and carry the day’s mail, including
parcel post packages, without relays back to the post office. The introduction
of the Parcel Post Service in 1913 had brought millions of packages into the
mail stream for the first time. After World War 1I, the amount of mail delivered
to American homes each day increased so dramatically that letter carders could
no longer rely solely on pouches and handcarts to carry mail on their daily
rounds. In the late 1950s, the Post Office Department began
supplying carriers with three-wheeled mail vans. Known as mailsters, these tiny
vans were efficient in carrying mail but uncomfortable and dangerous. Mailsters
offered little protection against cold or damp weather, little traction in good
weather, and often no traction in snow, and poor reliability, for they were
constantly breaking down. Letter carriers were not impressed by their new
vehicles, which they considered too dangerous, too flimsy, too small, too
underpowered, too prone to breaking down, too impractical and too top heavy. A
common complaint was that mailsters were unable to compete on the open road.
They simply lacked sufficient "get up and go". This frequently resulted in
back-ups, with cars lined up for blocks behind the creeping three-wheelers. The
tricycle design left mailsters susceptible to tipping over if cornering over 25
mph or if caught in a high wind. One mailster was even tipped over by a large
dog. The first large-scale purchase of these vehicles for letter
carriers’ use was in the 1950s. These funny-looking trucks could carry up to 500
pounds of mail. By the 1960s, mailsters comprised almost one-third of the postal
service’s vehicular fleet. While the idea behind mailstets was solid, the vans
were not, and from the 1950s, Jeeps increasingly became a vital part of the
Postal Service fleet because they were strong and agile. According to the passage, mailsters were likely to tip over because______.
A.even large dogs could cause this to happen B.they had 3 wheels C.the mail could shift in the van when cornering over 25 mph D.of cars lined up behind them