Some Americans have driveways 1/2 mile long. And longer...

My parents house (that I used to live at) was a mile from it's mailbox at the end of a long private dirt road. I would walk to get the mail every afternoon (I was homeschooled) to help clear my head and to get some daily exercise.

That's like 800 m, still very walkable

But not very fun when it's 103 degrees outside.

You still have to walk back.

I have to admit that we drove our trash to the dumpster where we lived in Pittsburgh. It was an apartment complex. We lived at the extreme east end, while the one and only dumpster was 0.3 miles away at the extreme west end.

I really want to believe you're joking, but think you're not :)

He's not. It's very common in rural Texas, and even in some cities where the USPS has implemented mail cluster boxes for 12+ households. Yours might be inconveniently far away from your home.

https://about.usps.com/publications/pub265a/pub265a_006.htm

I worked on a cattle ranch one summer in high school in West Texas and it was easily a 15 - 20 minute drive to get to the mailbox on the highway (the ranch was 11 miles from end to end, all rough dirt roads and gates every quarter mile or so).

Walking to get your mail in 105+ heat and back would have taken(no exaggeration) almost all day.

Hah, my parents don't get USPS mail at all, and they're in a smallish suburb that's not all that sparse.