Wanted: Florida car

Towns in Maine using liquid calcium chloride to melt road salt after winter snowstorms should discuss the issue of corrosion at their next annual town meeting so residents can decide whether they want to trade clean roads for longer lasting vehicles.

Most residents don’t think too much about the relationship between cleared roads in winter and rusted-out undercarriages in summer. But a recent purchase by the Windham Town Council of two $100,000 pick-up trucks outfitted with stainless steel components brought the problem of corrosion to light.

Salt and liquid calcium chloride, which combine to work miracles on stubborn snow and ice at sub-zero temperatures, can have a devastating effect on the metal parts on our cars and trucks. Sure, Maine commuters prefer clean roads after snowstorms in order to maintain a fast pace of life, but maybe it’s time to rethink how we perform winter road maintenance in our state.

Salt erodes our cars, and that erodes our wallets come repair time. But, if we do away with the clean roads, will car accidents increase? Or can we trust our fellow drivers to slow down and drive carefully on wintry roads? Is that a risk we even want to take, given the nature of crazy drivers these days?

It’s time we have a public discussion to figure out what we should expect of our winter road maintenance crews. Do we want immediate relief during snowstorms? Do we want the roads black? Or will we tolerate some delay in plowing or rougher roads in exchange for our car parts staying intact for a longer amount of time? Let’s get a public dialogue going. Are we willing to pay once in taxes to pay for the maintenance and then a second time at our auto body garages? Our metallic transporters, and the wallets that keep them going, will thank us for starting the debate.

The human toll

Last summer it was a guy walking down the middle of Route 302 in Casco drugged out on OxyContin. This summer, it’s an ATV rider or riders breaking into the Ice Cream Dugout finding a 200-pound safe, wheeling it out to their ATV on an office chair and hauling it off to the Grondin pit to see what valuables and cash rewards wait inside. Those are just some of the images the imagination comes up with after reading of the crime in our Lakes Region.

Another visual is the perplexed face of a distraught ice cream parlor owner, Troy Locke, who can’t fathom why someone would rob his lifelong dream-come-true, a viable and well frequented ice cream shop complete with a light-hearted baseball theme.

We did a story three years ago when Doc’s (now Cherry’s), Moose Tracks (now defunct) and the Ice Cream Dugout opened. Dugout owner Troy Locke was enthusiastic back then, and he’s just as enthusiastic now. His frustration, and the readerboard sign out front of his Route 302 establishment advertising a $500 cash reward for information leading to the arrest, are reminders that robberies take more than material goods and cash, they also take a human toll.

Locke feels betrayed by this act of vandalism and robbery. He and his employees were shocked the morning after the robbery to find the store soiled by the muddy footprints of strangers who had ill ambitions. We need to remember that this crime has a human toll and exacts real damage on the psyche of the victims.

But, to his credit, Locke is an optimistic person. He stays happy and upbeat and proud of his business. Still, he has learned – and we’ve all been reminded – that crime in the Lakes Region doesn’t just happen to “somebody else”; it happens to people we know – people who make our lives better – even the local ice cream shop owner.

If you know who committed this crime, call the Windham Police Department at 892-2525. While it could be anyone, it’s likely an ATV rider who lives in the Whites Bridge Road/Route 302 intersection area. You could earn $500 for your trouble, equivalent, as Locke said, to about 200 “Single” small cones at the Dugout.