Dear Editor:

In response to Mr. Muzeroll's recent letter regarding the November road conditions, I must heartily disagree.

My wife and I come from a northern climate with more severe winter weather than our Midcoast conditions and have each driven for nearly 50 years. We had an early engagement off the peninsula on November 24 and also on December 1 when conditions were similar beyond Boothbay.

In both situations, while we indeed consider ourselves knowledgeable drivers, we sincerely appreciated the road conditioning activities of our local public works and state DOT employees. While winter driving does require better driving skills as well as thorough knowledge of the driving characteristics of the vehicle, any failure to treat roads when needed will cause unintended accidents regardless of driving care.

Thankfully our local public works folks handle the road conditions in an extraordinary timely and proper way — far better than where we came from. 

This is absolutely not a waste of taxpayer money, at least not mine. As Franklin advised: avoid being penny wise and pound foolish. There is also one more vital point, with the closing of the St. Andrews ER, it is critically important that Route 27 and the River Road, as well as any adjoining local roads be clear and safe for emergency vehicles that, as most people know, are not the most stable vehicles in hazardous road conditions.

My wife and I would like to sincerely thank our public works employees and their management for the outstanding efforts they put forth — especially when it comes to winter hazardous road situations.

Mike Loewe
Boothbay