Its about the guy in the town's front loader. Maplewood Avenue, around 10:30 this morning.

The guy was tooling down Maplewood Avenue. Speed, at least 30 m.p.h., with the speed limit of 15 M.P.H.


And I’ll bet he didn’t have a proper muffler on that thing either, making everyone listen to all that noise.  Inconsiderate and rude if you ask me


This is a perfect opportunity to call DPW and discuss it instead of posting here.


I called DPW before posting here.

I suspect the call ended going directly up my ...



how many loaders does Maplewood have? lady on the phone wanted to know if I had the license number of the loader or could describe the driver.


Seriously? These guys have been busting their butts off lately. Probably rushing to move trees so someone could get to work. 


Mountainchef said:

Seriously? These guys have been busting their butts off lately. Probably rushing to move trees so someone could get to work. 

 Therefore, there is no reason for a 15 m.p.h. speed limit in the village. That a loader has a heavier weight load and longer stopping distance than a car.. oh well.

--- and the episode was Aug. 5th., the day after the storm. No one had spend days busting their butt at that date.


Would an ambulance or fire engine traveling at 30 mph on Maplewood Avenue elicit the same response?   By August 5th there were 89 confirmed reports of downed trees and/or wires blocking the roadways in town.  As of last night (5 days after the storm), the number of downed trees was reduced to two and the roadway was still closed at the intersection of Burnet and Maple.  Under these circumstances,  the front loader was also an emergency vehicle.  It is entirely believable that DPW has been working hard for that entire period.


joan_crystal said:

.... It is entirely believable that DPW has been working hard for that entire period.

 If so, that would exacerbate the danger. You would be adding driver fatigue to speed and longer stopping distance.


First, I must say, it is very doubtful that the bucket loader was traveling at 30mph, the top speed on these is around 20mph.

Second, the DPW is doing a great job around town. In fact, they were scooping up debris probably an hour after storm through. We didn’t even have a chance to set out branches, etc.

If it was me, I wouldn’t be calling the town about this, but that is just me.



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