A city of Bangor car was left propped up on a utility pole guy wire for 1 1/2 hours Tuesday after it skidded about 100 feet and slid up the wire, stopping just feet from the pole.

The driver, Paul Bolin, 20, of Winterport and his passenger, Mike Poulin, 22, of Bangor both escaped injury in the accident that occurred on the Hobart Road near Bangor High School around noontime. The two men are employees of the Bangor Department of Parks and Recreation.

The vehicle, a 1985 Chevrolet Impala belonging to the Bangor Public Works Department was undamaged in the accident. (Photo on Page 1.)

Bangor Patrolman Bruce Boyd said driver inexperience and mechanical problems with the car were contributing factors in the accident.

Boyd said Bolin may have panicked when he lost control of the car and couldn’t react properly to avoid the utility pole. In addition, a mechanical inspection of the car showed that the car’s brake rotors needed work and that the shock absorbers were in bad shape, he said.

According to a Public Works Department employee, this is not the first time that brake problems have been reported in this particular car. The employee said the car had been taken into the garage a month ago to have its front end and brakes repaired.

He said that he drives the car daily and that it seemed to work fine since it was repaired. The city is planning to sell the car next month, he said.

Brian Theriault, an accident reconstruction specialist with the Maine State Police assisted Bangor police in the investigation. Theriault said that driver inexperience was the most probable cause of the accident.

After the car was taken down from the wire Theriault tested it for braking problems and to see if excessive speed was involved. “We had no problem going through the turn,” even at a speed higher than Bolin had reportedly been going, he said.

Both Boyd and Theriault believed that very little if any excess of speed was involved in the accident. “There was no reckless speed involved at all,” Boyd said.

According to Bolin, he had been traveling 25 mph along the roadside when the car started to pull to the right side of the road. The car in the past has pulled to the right, he said. He then stepped on the brakes and tried to compensate for the drifting by using the steering wheel, Bolin said.

Next thing he knew, the front brakes were locked up and he had no control of the steering wheel. He said he didn’t see the wire but saw the pole and he tried to avoid hitting the pole.

Boyd said hitting the wire may have saved the two men from serious injury. Neither occupant was wearing a seat belt. By sliding up the wire, the two men were thrown back in their seats instead of proceeding forward through the windshield, he said.

Bangor Hydro-Electric Co. employees were called to the scene to shut off the power from the Broadway poles to the three that lined Hobart Road, and to straighten the transformer at the top of the pole.

One employee said that this was the first time in 10 years that he had seen a car balancing on the guy wire. Usually in such an accident the car strikes the pole causing it to break.