Bangor, ME : Eight people injured in head-on crash on Route 159 Sunday morning, May 8, 2016

Eight people were injured, several of them seriously, in a head-on collision Sunday morning on Route 159, west of Shin Pond.

The crash occurred shortly before 11 a.m. when Gurprasad Singh, 27, of India, who was traveling west in a 2016 Nissan Altima, came around a sharp left-hand corner and “went into the opposite lane as they are used to doing in India,” Maine State Police Sgt. Chad Fuller said Sunday evening in a news release.

That put Singh in the path of Douglas Kelshaw, 68, of Glenburn, who was traveling in the opposite direction in a 2013 GMC Sierra towing a trailer with an all-terrain vehicle on it, Fuller said.

Kelshaw tried to avoid a collision by moving over to the soft shoulder of the road, but the vehicles still struck each other head-on.

Singh and his passengers, Malika Thapa, 29, Reema Chila, 27, Hema Madaka, 22, and Gayatri Kakarla, 22, all of Boston, were taken to Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor with serious injuries. Three of of the passengers were not wearing seat belts at the time of the crash, which remains under investigation by Trooper John Darcy, Fuller said.

Kelshaw and his passengers, Marty Peters, 65, and Noreen Peters, 69, of Glenburn, suffered lesser injuries.

Fuller said that speed was not a factor in the collision.

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Eight people injured in head-on crash on Route 159