LIVERMORE FALLS – Most vehicles going around the Chuck Wagon corner on Main and Depot streets during a 30-minute stretch Thursday morning were traveling under the speed limit.
In front of the Town Office, Livermore Falls police had set up a mobile radar unit that displayed the speed of each vehicle.
On July 18, some business owners complained at the selectmen’s meeting that large trucks were going too fast around the 90-degree corner on state Route 17.
Selectmen had recently eliminated a second parking space in front of the Nason Block building, which houses several businesses on the corner of Main and Depot streets. They did this to give tractor-trailer drivers more room to safely negotiate the corner without crossing into the opposite lane.
Business representatives and selectmen said they were concerned for safety of traffic and pedestrians.
The speed on the road is 25 miles per hour, Police Chief Ernest Steward Jr. told resident Nelda Bond as she watched the numbers flash on the screen. The chief had come outside to sit on the wall near the portable radar unit to watch the traffic for a bit.
Most of the following speeds were recorded before the chief’s appearance.
On Thursday about 9 a.m., the radar screen flashed speeds ranging from 26 mph to 10 mph as a mix of vehicles went by in a 30-minute period. In general, cars were traveling faster than trucks, and the larger the truck, the slower the speed.
The closer the vehicles came to the corner, the slower they went.
Tractor-trailer truck speeds were between 16 mph and 10 mph, with an average speed of 13 mph.
Trucks that were larger than pickups but smaller than tractor-trailer trucks, most box trucks, went a little faster. Their speeds registered between 21 and 17 mph. An empty school bus went around the corner doing 22 mph.
Cars and sport utility vehicles were going between 26 and 17 mph during that time.
The car that was going fastest had out-of-state license plates and went straight down through Foundry Road instead of rounding the corner.
Steward said Monday that he checked the speeds periodically throughout the day at the corner and found that most people were traveling within the speed limit.
He’ll be sharing the police department’s observations with selectmen, he said. The radar unit was also set up on other streets, including High and Knapp, the chief said.
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