By Doug Fletcher,Staff Writer

A Brunswick man died Sunday after the motorcycle he was riding slammed into a Route 295 guardrail as he was attempting to pass other motorists.

It was the second fatal bike crash in as many days. A Rumford man died after his Harley-Davidson collided with a pickup truck in Roxbury Saturday afternoon.

In Sunday’s crash, state police Trooper Doug Cropper said Joseph Thibeault, 40, of 7 James St., Brunswick, was killed in the wreck.

It happened at about 11:55 a.m.

Thibeault had just finished working a shift at the Shaw’s Supermarket in Freeport and was headed toward his home in Brunswick, Cropper said. He had been expected to work a late Sunday night shift in the pressroom at the Kennebec Journal in Augusta, the trooper added.

Witnesses told Cropper that they were driving in the northbound travel lane at a rate of about 70 miles per hour when they saw Thibeault wheel his 2004 Honda Shadow into the passing lane. The bike then “took off,” Cropper said, went off the pavement and struck the guardrail.

“It was operator error,” Cropper said, coupled with speeding.

In the other accident, Trooper Kyle Tilsley said Sunday that Terry Blackwell, 38, of Oxford Street, Rumford, died after the Roxbury crash on Saturday.

Tilsley said, “improper passing and speed” may have been contributing factors.

Blackwell was attempting to pass a vehicle on Route 120 in an area where the road curves and there’s a slight grade that would obstruct an oncoming driver’s view.

His northbound Harley crashed into a southbound pickup truck driven by Wayne MacDougall, 62, also of Rumford. MacDougall wasn’t injured.

Blackwell had been flown by LifeFlight of Maine air ambulance to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston and was listed in critical condition before he died Saturday night.

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