BANGOR – Situated high above other motorists in the driver’s seat of his tractor-trailer truck, Chad Haverlock sat Thursday at the intersection of Broadway and Griffin Road waiting for the light to turn green.

With his big rig idling, the trucker sat through one green light – and then another – before a motorist held up traffic in the other direction so that Haverlock could swing the wide left turn.

As he checked his mirrors to make sure the 100,000-pound load of logs he was carrying wasn’t going to hit anyone or anything, Haverlock said it’s often hard to tell what other drivers are going to do.

Driving through the downtown Bangor area, he noted that with heavily loaded trucks no longer traveling on Interstate 395, traffic tie-ups would become more common at such intersections.

Not to mention that there won’t be many places to go if an emergency vehicle needs to get through and that traveling up Broadway, he drives through three school zones.

“There’s no place for big rigs like this to go,” the trucker said tersely, constantly checking his mirrors for other vehicles. It was hard for him to talk and drive at the same time.

Why the sudden increase in truck traffic through Bangor’s already congested streets? Because the police are now enforcing a weight restriction on Interstate 395 that truckers say hasn’t been enforced for years.

Several truckers said that last week Maine State Police officers pulled them over on Interstate 395 to warn them that the 80,000-pound weight limit in place since the route was created now is going to be strictly enforced.

Maine State Police officials at the Orono barracks wouldn’t comment on the issue, saying only that nothing new was going on.

A state police official said this week that there had been no changes in state police enforcement.

“There isn’t anything different today than there was yesterday or last year or in the 1990s for that matter,” John Fraser, Maine State Police Motor Carrier Inspections supervisor, said earlier this week.

Truckers disagree.

“State police let word out Friday [Sept. 17] that that was the last day we could use 395,” truck driver Ed Haverlock of Greenbush said earlier this week.

He owns and operates Ed Haverlock & Sons Trucking, the outfit his grandson, Chad Haverlock, drives for, and has four logging trucks on the road, going daily to and from Maine paper mills.

Another state police official said there were no specific reasons for the stricter enforcement.

“We’re finding that there are a number of overloaded vehicles out there,” Maine State Police Lt. Chris Grotton of the Augusta Traffic Division said Tuesday.

After an officer pulled over a truck in violation of the weight limit and was told by the driver that he wasn’t aware of the law, state police began to realize there was confusion regarding the weight rule.

“We are trying to be reasonable,” Grotton said. “[Police] have no choice but to enforce the law.”

Ed Haverlock, however, has another worry.

“The thing that we’re concerned about, we want the people to know we’re not just making a parade through Bangor because we want to,” he said.

Truckers have been using the approximately two-mile I-395 strip to connect from Route 178 to Route 2 in Newport for years to avoid driving through Bangor’s congested downtown streets.

“They oughta have a law to make us get out on the interstate, not get off it,” Haverlock said.

Federal regulations prevent trucks weighing more than 80,000 pounds from traveling on Interstate 95 north of Augusta and on Interstate 395.

State police have recommended that from Brewer, truckers take Broadway through Bangor to the Griffin Road, which eventually connects them to Route 2 near Hammond Street Extension, according to local truck drivers.

There are 20 stoplights along the 7.5-mile route, which is mostly uphill.

Traveling Thursday morning in his logging truck loaded with 100,000 pounds of logs bound for the Jay Paper Mill, Chad Haverlock, 23, said he was fortunate to hit only nine red lights.

“Intersections are the worst part,” Haverlock said at the Broadway-State Street stoplight.

It takes a lot of room to maneuver a tractor-trailer, and when cars try to sneak by on the right, it can be difficult to see them in the truck’s mirrors, he said.

“In this job you have quite a lot of responsibility, and not just for yourself,” the trucker said.

While he drove on Broadway, an ambulance came from the opposite direction, and Haverlock noted that there is no place for big rigs like his to go if emergency vehicles need to get through. Cars line both sides of the street in many sections of town, creating a narrow passageway.

Crossing the Joshua Chamberlain Bridge into Bangor and traveling up Union Street to Hammond Street and connecting to Route 2 is another option for truckers with heavy loads. But there are some tricky turns that can be difficult to make if other motorists aren’t paying attention or don’t realize the amount of space needed to turn a large truck.

“It’s like driving a bunch of cattle on the range and putting up gates and fences so you can only go certain places,” Ed Haverlock said.

Grotton said that enforcing the weight limit on I-395 is nothing new, even though truck drivers who travel the route daily disagree.

“We’re not putting up a protest … we’re just trying to get down country,” Ed Haverlock said.

A bill, currently stuck in the legislative bog of Washington D.C., would permit trucks weighing more than 80,000 pounds to travel on interstate roads in Maine. The bill would allow a three-year test run allowing trucks to travel the route.

“Increasing federal truck weight limits is a top priority,” U.S. Sen. Susan Collins said Thursday. “If House and Senate leaders are unable to come to an agreement on the highway bill, we will continue to push this legislation and seek avenues where it can be included.

“Maine’s citizens and motorists are needlessly at risk because too many heavy trucks are forced off the interstate and on to local roads,” Collins said.

State Rep. Anita Peavey-Haskell, R-Greenbush, met last week with a group of local truckers, including Ed Haverlock, who are frustrated about the weight limits, and she said their concerns are justified.

“Basically [the truckers] just feel that they need some sort of solution to avoid what is almost certain to be a problem when you start taking trucks through small towns and big cities,” she said Thursday.

We the People, a group of residents from the Old Town-Alton area who are appealing the West Old Town Landfill project, also are concerned about heavy trucks traveling on narrow roads through populated areas.

Group representatives previously have said it makes more sense to have the heavy trucks travel on the interstate and avoid cities and towns, especially if the proposed landfill opens in West Old Town, bringing with it many heavy trucks carrying solid waste.

“It’s just one unsafe situation after another,” Ed Haverlock said. “I’m expecting that the people are going to be vicious when it hits ’em.”

Maine State Police in Orono would not comment on whether they had pulled trucks over and issued verbal warnings about the weight limit or provided suggestions for alternate routes.

All requests for information were referred to the State Police Traffic Division in Augusta, from which Grotton said alternate route suggestions weren’t being provided.

The Haverlocks and other drivers say that’s not true. They just don’t want any serious accidents to happen before a change can be made.

“We’re just hoping that it won’t take many days before somebody pulls their horns in and asks us to take 395 and keep out of Bangor,” Ed Haverlock said. “It seems to me like the only sensible thing to do.”