Dear Editor:

I’ve driven commercial vehicles for most of my adult life (about 45 years or so) and I’d like to think that I’ve seen it all, but distracted driving seems to be getting worse. Something as simple as adjusting your mirror or radio, or even glancing at a passenger, can take your eyes off the road for a few seconds.

A recent couple of letters to the editor from Maggie Connelly brought this to mind. Her near miss with a tractor trailer on Eddy Road just might have been one of those cases.

I’ve driven trucks on that road many times, both taking materials to a job site or moving a piece of equipment to a job site on a low bed. I can’t believe a driver, unfamiliar with that road, would be speeding in a “rig.”

On the corner in question, there is quite a bit of vegetation but, if you’re paying attention, you can see enough to tell if another vehicle is coming, especially a tractor trailer.

We’ve all been startled by somthing that “pops up” when you least expect it, and sometimes we overreact and, without blinking, get into a bad situation.

I know that it’s hard to believe that we can make a mistake, but sometimes it happens.

I’ve been the guy in the big truck and I’ve seen some crazy reactions to meeting a truck where you least expect it.

So please, don’t be so quick to blame the other guy. The Eddy Road has been used more and more by frustrated people who are trying to avoid the delays on Route 1 and perhaps this was one of those occasions.

The best way to remedy the situation is to build the bypass in Wiscasset or at least move Red’s Eats to a side street, instead of building a boulevard and roundabout in Boothbay Center and destroying the history of a much loved village, just to satisfy one guy. But, then again, that’s another story.

Dennis Andrews

Boothbay