A car accident on Jones Road in Somerville snapped a utility pole Jan. 7.
At about 8:55 a.m. Jeremy Hallowell pulled out of his driveway at 118 Jones Rd. He made it about 200 yards before hitting a utility pole. The pole snapped, but there was almost no damage to his truck.
“I should have stayed in bed this morning,” Hallowell said.
Hallowell said he was accelerating on ice at the end of his driveway, and when he pulled onto the road he hit another patch of ice and slid into the pole.
“I couldn’t have been going more than 20 miles per hour,” he said.
The pole leaned out over the road but was held up by telephone and power lines. There were no power outages reported as a result of the accident.
“They say the lights didn’t even flicker,” said Somerville Assistant Fire Chief Dave Stanley.
Bill Coutts with Central Maine Power wasn’t surprised that the pole snapped so easily.
“You never know,” Coutts said, “Sometimes they total the car without a scratch on the pole, and sometime the pole comes down without a scratch on the car.”
The pole should be replaced within a few hours, Coutts said.
No charges will be filed, said Deputy Peter Kenyon with the Lincoln County Sheriff’s office. Hallowell’s insurance will pay for the repairs on the pole, which will cost between $1200 and $1500, Coutts said.
