FALMOUTH, Maine — Morning rush-hour commuters were backed up Monday after a pickup truck hauling gravel lost its load on Interstate 295, according to police.
The driver of the F-250 landscaping truck, Stephen Dorr of Gorham, was hauling gravel and shrubs in a two-axle trailer, according to Trooper John Kyle of the Maine State Police, when his load flipped over at Exit 9 in the southbound lane.
“The trailer rolled over and spilled the contents onto the road,” said Kyle.
Dorr, who was not injured, was heading southbound at the time of the accident, which occurred at 8 a.m., Kyle said.
The trooper isn’t sure what caused Dorr’s trailer to come unhinged.
“Somehow he managed not to hit anybody else,” said Kyle. “After the trailer flipped, he was able to drag it out of the roadway.”
Traffic was slowed for hours while crews cleaned up the scene.
I hope no one got hurt.. Big gravel trucks are dangerous and the state might consider banning them from traveling over 45 MPH.
Ya.
That’ll work great on interstates with traffic running 70-80 MPH.
Kinda like a bug hitting a windsheild.
It works elsewhere. Are you saying that Mainers are too stupid to avoid hitting the slower moving vehicles ahead of them?
Seriously, a “competently” run expanded rail system would be huge for Maine’s economy and would remove some of the heavy traffic from the roads, thus making them safer. Of course, that wouldn’t have prevented the gravel truck mishap as I’m sure that was a local delivery but, every little bit helps.
As of yet, this article makes no mention of the truck hitting anything, going off the road, tipping over, or speeding. It may have just been a leaking tailgate for all we presently know.
It would seem that some of the commenters so far have hitthesuppositionbutton.
Most mid-western states (Illinois/Indiana/Michigan) impose slower speed limits on commercial vehicles which makes sense (and cents!) Obviously, a 40 ton trucks will take far longer to stop than a 1.5 ton auto. Also, the fuel savings from just a 5 MPH slowdown is HUGE…especially for the non-aerodynamic rolling walls that are most commercial vehicles. Here in Maine, those logging trucks are………………………………………………………….
No they don’t work. They wind up crowding trucks together, make it more difficult for traffic coming on the interstate to merge as the trucks can’t get over, and they slow traffic as a whole causing the likely-hood of more accidents. Ohio is doing away with them as the trucks were using the secondary roads to avoid these issues. Not to mention the fact the average speed limit is 65 and trucks are made to run as efficiently as possible at that speed. So your fuel savings notion is wrong too. You are either keeping a high rpm in a lower gear, or lugging the engine in a higher one, and having to work harder to get up hills.