Parade danger

This letter concerns the story in the Bangor Daily News (Aug. 19) of the accident that happened at the Hampden Children’s Day parade.

We own the Chrysler Imperial that was struck from behind. According to your story, (Roland) Terrill, the other driver, told Officer (Eric) Jipson that he tried to steer his car right between the crowd and our car.

Think about this for a minute. As your story states, “Most of the parade watchers in that area were children sitting on the curbside.” Why were they sitting so near? Because they wanted to dart out and get candy that was thrown to them. They didn’t think of the danger.

If people must give candy, which we think is nice, why can’t they have a teen-ager or someone dressed up in silly clothes walk alongside their unit and go to the curb instead of luring the children out into danger? If the car had missed us, it would have been a really bad scene.

The drivers of the cars and other units have enough to keep watch of without children darting out. We were in the Bar Harbor parade and they requested no candy be thrown.

We don’t know if we will be able to find the parts to fix our car or not, but we’re sure if we had not been there, there would have been events that could not be fixed.

We are asking all parade officials to ban the throwing of candy. Vernard and Evelyn Merrifield St. Albans