Contributed photo/Maine State PoliceSHERMAN — Portions of the southbound lane of Interstate 95 were briefly shut down on Dec. 28 after a rollover crash took place near mile marker 264 in Sherman, according to Maine State Police.
Cpl. Corey Hafford said in a written statement that the crash took place just before 10:30 a.m. when Christopher Carson, 44, of Woodland lost control of the 2005 Chevrolet pickup he was driving and careened off the roadway, rolling over. He was also towing a trailer behind him.
Carson and his passenger received minor injuries as a result of the crash, and were taken to Houlton Regional Hospital by Patten Ambulance to be treated. They were later released. Defective tires on the vehicle and driving too fast for road conditions were the primary cause of the crash, according to Hafford. Both the driver and passenger were wearing seat belts. The southbound lane had to be briefly shut down to remove the vehicle, he said.
This is the second recent accident in which poor tire conditions and driving too fast for road conditions were the contributing factors in an accident. On Dec. 26, Owen Botting, 85, of Island Falls, suffered minor injuries
to himself and the two passengers in his vehicle after an accident in Smyrna that Hafford also said was caused by poor tire conditions and driving too fast for road conditions.
Hafford said that getting two defective tire accidents in one week is “rare.”
He said in the case of Carson, the tire was “so worn out he couldn’t stop.”
“At least one of the tires was worn down to the canvas, so he tried to stop and he couldn’t,” he said. “He lost control.”
In the case of Botting, one of the tires was bald.
“He has pretty much the same problem. When you get this kind of weather, you need good tires on your vehicles,” Hafford said Wednesday.
