HOLDEN, Maine — An accident involving a vehicle and a utility pole late Saturday afternoon caused a traffic jam on busy Route 1A between Bangor and Ellsworth.
Officer Tom Burgess of the Holden Police Department said Lawrence Sinclair Jr., 32, of Ellsworth got distracted and then lost control of his 2002 Ford Explorer. He struck a utility pole where Route 1A intersects with Bagaduce Road.
“He cut [the pole] right off,” Burgess said.
The accident backed up traffic significantly in both directions because the utility pole was lying across Bagaduce Road, forcing cars to be rerouted.
“He walked away without a scratch,” Burgess said, referring to Sinclair. The man’s vehicle, however, was totaled.
“An accident involving a vehicle and a utility pole..”
“A Penobscot County dispatcher said a vehicle struck a utility pole on Route 1A in Holden”
Man what is up with these Utility poles and cars lately? Cars just deciding to hit poles. Unreal.
It’s as if the BDN has an 8 person panel who get a story and then are instructed to come up wtih some phrases that you would never see in another paper.
You read the story and you would think the Utility pole didn’t stop at the stop sign.
something went wrong
Maybe the pole jumped out in front of the car.
Texting dont ya know? Thats what they like to blame some unexplained things on on here. Texting and bath salts always the blame :)
I thought for sure it was either make up or a crossword puzzle while driving.
I’m very surprised that nobody was injured. We drove past it not long after it happened, and it looked really bad! So happy that it didn’t have the outcome I expected to read about! Especially after seeing an ambulance leave the scene in no hurry.
I can’t imagine taking that road every day to work. What a nightmare, especially in the summer.
I did it every day for 12 years, from out past lucerne in all the way to the far west side of bangor…
I was stuck in that for about an hour. Never saw what the car looked like after the crash, but the pole? Snapped in half like a toothpick. Thank god no one was hurt.
The SUV looked REALLY BAD! Front end on the driver’s side was pretty much nonexistent. Very surprised (and happy) that nobody got hurt!
teaching firefighters how to keep the traffic moving must not be part of their training. my family was stuck in it for more then an hour coming back from bangor while cars were hardly backed up going to bangor!
Loading up on bath salts?
bangor still selling that stuff?
I think they manufacture the stuff at the Homeless Shelter.
The police provide traffic control, not firefighters. I wasn’t a firefighter in Maine but when I did attend the fire academy in a different state taffic control was never part of any of my fire classes.
Firefighters and EMT’s have more important things to worry about other than how traffic is flowing.
That may be true in most cases, but at THIS accident, it was firefighters that were providing traffic control. There was one at the 1A entrance to Leadbetter’s, one in the Leadbetter’s parking lot directing people around the backside of the building, and one at the intersection of 1A and Bagaduce Road.
What was Holden PD doing then?
I have no idea! On our way to Bangor yesterday, we stopped into the Holden PD to report something blocking the road, and there was nobody in the office. It was the Eddington FD that I saw at the scene too, not Holden. There were multiple trucks though, and I couldn’t see them all, so it’s possible that Eddington was just there to help Holden.
They have more important things to worry about? Odd but I’ve seen plenty of times at an accident where some firemen were the ones waving the cars through.
I can’t be the only one who thinks that after Kevin of Bangor got done with the Fire Academy he became a hermit because he doesn’t ever know anything that happens outside in the light of day.
If having a nasty cold that doesn’t allow one to sleep makes one a hermit, then I’m a hermit.
Firefighters provide traffic control for MANY accident scenes and is part of what they do as emergency responders, and they certainly were for this one as well. There are usually more of them able to respond and help out than there are officers in the area.
Orland fire department went to the accident last week (or more) ago when there was a deadly crash on Toddy Pond Road…. FIRE department was directing traffic. Quite sure they have anyone do it not just cops. And half the time none of them are all that good at it :)
Well they must be letting probies direct the traffic then.
firefighters are taught traffic control, and sometimes that means not letting any traffic through at all. there were lots of electric lines down in the road and others were hanging a few feet off the ground. holden fd did have dot notified, which should result in a notification to peoples navigators and reroute them around the mess. not yet known why mr potato head decided to drive into the pole.
Why do people always hit poles? It is like a 1 in 50 chance to go off the road and hit a pole and yet people constantly pull it off. There must be some calling out there for these dead shots.
Lack of anything better to hit?
Evidently you have never had one of those damn poles jump right out in front of you. you think they are just static objects but…..when you least expect it……TAH DAH!!!
Id rather have them hit a pole then hit another vehicle or person walking!
The man who caused that mess was the one who died in the shooting in Lamoine this morning. I really hope you feel bad for your statement hoping he’s made to pay.
sorry i did not know that ! after waiting for over an hour i just wanted the driver fined not pay with his life! sorry i was told at a nearby store it was a young lady that clipped that pole.
News flash that intersection needs a light. Turning on an off there is like a pit stop at a NASCAR race. Ridiculous.
Why do we have poles in the first place? It’s so crude…wires flopping all over the place.
I was in Brewer walmart when the power went out yesterday! Kind of creepy you could hear everyone like gasp lol. The workers said that it was due to someone hitting a pole an hour or so before. Assuming must of been this one
What’s amazing is the Holden PD has a budget of nearly $500,000 with 12 people on the payroll. It’s a joke.
That does sound like quite a low budget for 12 people.
and they pull over every 3rd car they see….most agessive cops ive seen around here
“…Lawrence Sinclair Jr., 32, of Ellsworth got distracted and then lost
control of his 2002 Ford Explorer. He struck a utility pole…”
Driver inattention is considered a crash, not an “accident”.
What do you consider his shooting death in Lamoine hours later?
And… The actual cause of the accident?
is this the same guy who got shot that night in ellsworth
He walked away without a scratch only to die a day later. How sad.