A crash on Route 9 near Rabbit Road in Durham that left two men dead and two injured in 2016.
DURHAM — After a recent spate of crashes in Durham, local officials say it’s time to take another look at what can be done to improve safety on certain roads.
In April, a Sabattus woman was killed and two others injured in a crash on Shiloh Road.
In May, Route 9 at the intersection of Runaround Pond Road was closed after a car hit a utility pole and rolled over, sending a 23-year-old Freeport woman to the hospital with a head injury.
Last month a 42-year-old Phippsburg woman was airlifted to Central Maine Medical Center and transported to Maine Medical Center after her vehicle hit a truck hauling a horse trailer at the intersection of Rabbit Road and Route 136.
Earlier this month, Rabbit Road was closed for several hours after a 43-year-old Durham woman fell asleep at the wheel. Her SUV left the road, struck a utility pole and rolled over. She was treated and released at Maine Medical Center in Portland.
Selectmen have asked Road Commissioner Calvin Beaumier adding additional safety measures such as traffic lights in two dangerous areas: Rabbit Road’s intersections with Quaker Meetinghouse Road which crosses Route 136; and the intersection with Runaround Pond Road and Route 9. He plans to reach out to the state transportation department for help.
“The last time we checked with DOT they said the intersection didn’t have high enough crash volumes to meet the threshold warranting them doing anything about it,” Beaumier said.
It’s time to take another look at it, Beaumier said, stating that the roads have been repaved or rebuilt which may encourage drivers to drive faster.
Durham Selectman chair Kevin Nadeau said only a couple of residents have come to meetings to raise concerns. Most complaints have occurred on a closed-group Facebook page.
LIMITED RESOURCES MEAN LIMITED OPTIONS
Selectmen want Beaumier to confer with the Department of Transportation. Nadeau said the most dangerous spots involve state roads like Route 136 and Route 9 intersecting with local roads. Any of the options floated — speed bumps, rumble strips or traffic signals — is a state decision. While the DOT tracks high crash locations, Nadeau said the problem is that the state is slow to tackle current problem areas since it calculates high crash locations in three-year blocks.
“All we can do is continue to bring it to their attention,” he said.
He praised a simple fix the DOT made last year when it converted the Route 125 and Quaker Meetinghouse Road from a two-way to a four-way stop.
“I can tell you that has been a great thing,” said Nadeau, who lives near the intersection.
Robert Skehan, director of the Maine Department of Transportation’s Office of Safety, said that, generally, the department will apply the least costly solution to a traffic safety program, “instead of jumping to the most expensive, so that way we can treat more areas and potentially save more lives and prevent more injuries.”
The Maine Department of Transportation has limited funding and more than 1,000 high-crash areas every year that must be addressed. That threshold is eight crashes over a three-year period according to Skehan.
“These are not arbitrary decisions we’re making,” he said. “These are data-driven, focused issues.”
There are far more safety issues than the department has funds to address, according to Skehan.
“We don’t have the money to address 1,000 areas to make them go away, so we address them as best we can,” he said.
The department has recently flagged two intersections and two town-owned stretches of road as high incident areas to examine. They all had nine or 10 crashes over the last three years. They include the intersection of Route 136 (Royalsborough Road) and Rabbit Road; the intersection of Route 125 (Pinkham Hill Road) and Quaker Meetinghouse Road; a 1.4-mile stretch of Rabbit Road from Route 9 (Hallowell Road) to Route 136 (Royalsborough Road); and the 1.97-mile stretch of Bowie Hill Road from Stackpole Road to Davis Road. The department will be out to look at the intersections and the regional traffic engineer will meet with local officials.
Five years of crash history data the department collected from 2014-18 included four serious injury crashes but no fatalities in these four specific areas of town.
However, according to the Department of Transportation’s online state public crash database, there have been six fatal crashes so far since 2014 which claimed the lives of seven people.
The rate of crashes also caught the attention of Rep. Braden Sharpe of Durham, who sent a letter to the DOT last week voicing his personal concern. He asks in the letter if the department has looked at the state road intersections at both ends of Rabbit Road. He said he’s also seen the Facebook alerts and comments about “another accident,” and the concern and frustration is clear.
“I think speed and the overall setup are the biggest contributing factors,” he said in an email to The Times Record.
LAW ENFORCEMENT
Durham officials have looked at boosting its law enforcement presence in town, another challenge for a rural town without its own local police force. Nadeau said the Androscoggin County Sheriff’s Office is available to respond to calls and crashes but doesn’t regularly patrol in town.
Selectmen recently proposed spending $3,600 out of a $2 million municipal budget to pay for special speed enforcement details from the sheriff’s office. The sheriff’s office charges $75 per hour for a deputy to spend a minimum of 4-hours looking for speeders.
The proposal failed at town meeting in March. Voters argued since they’re paying county taxes, the sheriff’s office should provide those services anyway.
“With all of this, I think the point of emphasis I would make is, the issues are all about driver error and driver inattentiveness and it’s about people being distracted and not stopping when they’re supposed to stop,” Nadeau said. “There’s only so much a sign or a light is going to do. Ultimately, people need to pay attention and stop when they’re supposed to.”
Beaumier, Durham’s road commissioner, agreed.
“People just aren’t stopping,” he said.
BY THE NUMBERS
Maine Department of Transportation’s has flagged four areas of Durham as high incident crash areas based on 2016-2018 data. A five-year crash history for these same areas (2014-2018) reveals the following:
Intersection of Route 136 (Royalsborough Road) and Rabbit Road
Total crashes: 12
Serious injury: 2
Minor injury: 0
Intersection of Route 125 (Pinkham Hill Road) and Quaker Meetinghouse Road
Total crashes: 14
Serious injury: 1
Minor injury: 3
Rabbit Road (1.41 miles) from Route 9 (Hallowell Road) to Route 136 (Royalsborough Road)
Total crashes: 10
Serious injury: 1
Minor injury: 3
Bowie Hill Road (1.97 miles) from Stackpole Road to Davis Road
Total crashes: 8
Serious injury: 0
Minor injury: 2
The Department of Transportation’s online public crash query tool lists six fatal crashes since 2014 to present which claimed seven lives:
July 2014, Stackpole Road near Bowie Hill Road intersection
August 2015, 379 Pinkham Brook Road near Meadow Road intersection
August 2016, 174 Newell Brook Road (Route 9)
September 2016, Runaround Pond, Route 136, Rabbit Road intersection (two fatalities)
October 2017, 281 Royalsborough Road (Route 136)
April 2019, 186 Shiloh Road
This Maine Department of Transportation graph shows crashes in Durham since 2014.
This Maine Department of Transportation graph shows the level of injuries sustained in all crashes in Durham since 2014.
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