The accident on Mills Road during the Damariscotta-Newcastle Memorial Day parade is the talk of the towns this week.
This one is close to home. The Twin Villages’ long-standing parade route starts literally at our front door in Newcastle.
Coming out of our office lot, take a right; the route travels six-tenths of a mile down Mills Road/Rt. 215 to the Bus. Rt. 1/Academy Hill/Mills Road intersection and then bangs a left, heading down Main Street. The route ends less than a mile later at the Damariscotta Baptist Church.
With the sole exception of the Lincoln Academy Homecoming Parade, which starts at the church and comes back up the hill to the school, every Damariscotta-Newcastle parade has followed this same route for years.
For all of these years, every single parade has followed this route safely; every single one, that is, except for the last two; this past weekend when an errant golf cart ran over some parade marchers, and the one last October when a man literally died in the street during the Damariscotta Pumpkinfest parade.
The two accident scenes are less than a half-mile apart.
Many of the same responders to the fatal crash last October, and we daresay, many of the people along that parade route, were on scene this time around, when the results were happier, but in the moment, no less harrowing.
We think the crash last fall set us up to think the worst this time. Something bad could happen here. Something bad did happen here last October and it happened again Monday. But for the grace of God, the families and the community were spared.
What comes out of this, we don’t know.
We would hate to think the recent run of bad luck leads to the kind of rules and regulations that are often the hallmark of success and just as often the death knell for informal community fun.
Parades are a method of celebration and a means of bringing a community together. We shouldn’t forget that.
We suggest organizers hesitate before they get too technical.
The crash last October was a horrible accident at the most inopportune time. That kind of thing could happen in any parade, at anytime, regardless of the best laid plans.
Looking ahead, if we insist every parade vehicle is registered and/or has a licensed driver, as some have suggested – doesn’t that eliminate four wheelers, kids in go-karts and mini bikes and the like, and is that really a desirable result?
In recent years, parade pedestrians and vehicles have mixed together. Time was, all vehicles lined up at the back and the pedestrians went first. The solution might be as simple as that.
