Keep on truckin'

 After a long period of development, the newly designed US Postal Service's mail trucks are finally being deployed.   They certainly won't win any beauty contests, but of course that isn't their main goal.  Practicality is the primary aim, and from early comments by mail carriers who use them, the new vehicle is a success.  With many improvements in safety, comfort and reliability over the 1980s era Grumman-built mail trucks still in wide service, the new Next Generation Delivery Vehicle is a marked improvement in the delivery fleet.  The NGDV is part of an ambitious 10-year plan by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to streamline and modernize the world's largest postal system.  DeJoy has been widely criticized for the plan's implementation, which has triggered significant degradation of service in many parts of the country.  Whether these deficits can be overcome remains to be seen.  There are even concerns that postal delays will impede mailed ballots in November's presidential election, four years after new Trump appointee DeJoy was accused of deliberately slowing mail service to affect absentee ballots.  Hopefully, the growing pains of the USPS restructuring will be temporary, and the service can return to its previous efficiency.  Until then, at least some spiffy new trucks will be a welcome improvement.