RUMFORD — Residents are being asked to weigh in on road safety for “non-motorists” as part of a Vulnerable Road User Safety Assessment being performed by the town, Maine Department of Transportation and Androscoggin Valley Council of Governments.

A vulnerable road user is a “nonmotorist” which includes pedestrians, bikes, scooters, skateboards, motorized and non-motorized wheelchairs, and people using other means of “personal conveyance.”

“This is being done because we’ve had a number of fatal accidents of non-motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists on our roadways in the town over the last five or six years,” Town Manager George O’Keefe said.

A public workshop was held Dec. 4 at Rumford Falls Auditorium by AVCOG, whose member towns are from Oxford, Franklin and Androscoggin counties.

Transportation engineer Brad Pineau and regional planner Shelley Kruszewski made an hourlong presentation about developing strategies and shaping recommendations aimed at making roadway conditions safer for vulnerable road users.

Pineau said that in 2023 the state of Maine did a Vulnerable Road User Safety Assessment that covered the whole state. In that assessment, the state looked at the previous five years of crash data from 2018-2022, looking at instances where someone is killed as well as serious injuries.

He said Rumford was identified as one of the towns with five or more vulnerable road user fatalities. Pineau said one location in Rumford identified as a high-crash location, with more than eight crashes from 2022-24, is the rotary.

Police Chief Tony Milligan said that in that rotary, “there are an alarming number of incidents where kids, in particular, on bicycles, skateboards or whatever, come flying down Plymouth Avenue because it’s a hill and come barreling into that rotary like it’s their last day to be alive. They don’t stop. They don’t slow down.

“Hopefully, if things go well, they’ll merge with the traffic. If things don’t go well, and I’ve actually seen this (while off duty), a kid coming down Plymouth Avenue, sailing right across the car right ahead of me, into the rotary. He was going so fast that he couldn’t stop and smashed into the sidewalk and concrete bridge railing on the far side because he had so much speed. We had a little chat after that happened as he had to brush himself off,” the chief added.

Milligan said that was not an isolated incident.

“We have an alarming number of kids that don’t realize that they’re supposed to be following the same traffic rules that motorists have,” he said.

Milligan said there are also many pedestrians on their cellphones walking down the sidewalk and walking right out in front of traffic.

He said educating kids and following safety/traffic rules are critically important.

“Bike accidents are going get worse with those battery-operated bikes. They go just as fast as some of these cars,” Road Superintendent Dale Roberts added.

Milligan said he believes the last spot the state identified as particularly dangerous for non-motorists was the intersection of Waldo Street and Lincoln Avenue.

“That one makes perfect sense to me because that’s an incredibly dense, high traffic area, and between that intersection and Hancock Street and Lincoln Avenue where the traffic lights are,” he said.

O’Keefe noted there was a fatal crash at the Hancock Street and Lincoln Avenue intersection where the retaining wall is located.

He said the big question for recommended changes is who is going to pay for them. He noted AVCOG has no money for this and that it typically would fall upon the town.

“The answer right now, based on challenges we have in front of us, we’re not going to (spend) $100,000 on fixing an intersection. I’m very confident of that. On the other hand, maybe there are some things we can do,” O’Keefe said.

The town has the survey on its website.