CRACK SEALING ALERT!

If your town or city is doing crack sealing this year, please BE AWARE of this concern from the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA). The AMA has received an increasing number of complaints from their members about loss of control of their motorcycles when traveling over sealed cracks and pavement joints. Two particularly dangerous situations are:

1) longitudinal cracks on curves, and
2) areas where sealant is wet or very soft in the hot weather

The most common cause of the slipperiness is excess application of the crack sealant itself.

Whether it's a contractor or municipal forces doing the sealing work, please be sure that this problem is minimized in your community. One suggestion is to no longer use the overband method when filling cracks in the direction of travel. Instead, fill the longitudinal cracks flush with the pavement surface. On the transverse cracks across the lane, continue to fill the cracks by overbanding to the correct degree.

For further information on crack sealing in Maine, call the Center and we can send you some material.