Posted on 06/25/2011 9:41:27 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
RENO, Nev. (CBS/AP) — Authorities plan to look into the driving and medical records of the semitrailer driver who died when the truck slammed into an Amtrak train, killing a train crew member and injuring dozens of passengers.
Peter Knudson, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, said they also will look at autopsy results to determine whether the driver had consumed any drugs around the time of the collision Friday.
The big rig plowed into the California-bound train at a crossing in a rural area about 70 miles east of Reno. Knudson said federal investigators would make sure that railroad lights and crossing gates were working at the time.
Nevada Highway Patrol Trooper Dan Lopez said the gates and warning lights were working. Witnesses told authorities that the truck didn’t seem to attempt to stop at the crossing when it crashed through the gate. The driver was the sole occupant of the semi, which was hauling two empty gravel trailers.
About 20 people aboard the train were taken to hospitals in Reno and Fallon, but Lopez didn’t know the extent of their injuries. Dan Davis, spokesman for Renown Regional Medical Center in Reno, said two people were in critical condition, four were in serious condition and three were in fair condition.
(Excerpt) Read more at sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com ...
Thanks for the update. It’s odd that they’re not releasing the driver’s name, but it does seem to have been an accident.
Still no ID released for the driver. If the driver’s been reduced to cinders, I can see why they’d have a hard time confirming ID. Wonder if that’s the reason, or the only reason, for the delay...?
More questions than answers in truck-train crash
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-train-crash-20110627,0,5137205.story
end of article snip..
—
.. the truck was leading a three-truck convoy from the Battle Mountain trucking company. The two other drivers told investigators they saw the train coming and wondered why the lead driver wasn’t stopping.
The driver finally slammed on his brakes, leaving a 320-foot skid mark on northbound U.S. 95, Weener said. The grade crossing is protected by signs as far back as 900 feet, and by flashing lights and gates that activate 25 seconds before a train reaches the crossing.
Traveling at 70 mph, the truck would have been about half a mile from the intersection when the lights began flashing, Weener said. Widely used stopping-distance estimates indicate that a truck traveling at 70 mph needs 465 feet to stop.
and from SFGate.com
Train-crash trucker had string of traffic tickets
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/06/27/BA461K37NM.DTL&tsp=1
The big-rig driver who slammed into an Amtrak train in Nevada, killing himself and at least five people aboard the train, was identified today as 43-year-old man who had been licensed to drive trucks in Nevada for only a month and had accumulated numerous traffic citations in California.
Lawrence Valli of Winnemucca, Nev., was killed when he slammed his 2008 Peterbilt truck into the side of the California Zephyr at a remote rail crossing on U.S. Highway 95, about 70 miles east of Reno, shortly before 11:30 a.m. Friday. Valli, pulling a pair of empty gravel trailers, applied his brakes moments before the crash but was unable to stop in time, investigators said.
Investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board said the gates and warning lights were working at the crossing, and that Valli should have been able to spot them from a mile away.
Records show that Valli received his license to drive big rigs in Nevada in May 2011, and that in 2008 and 2009 he was driving a school bus in California - where he received four traffic citations in a three-month period.
end of piece..
A similar crash occurred at the same rail crossing in September, when a truck driver narrowly missed ramming an Amtrak train. The truck driver in that incident told The Chronicle on Sunday that he was blinded by the early-morning sun and didn’t see the train approaching.
He noted that the highway and tracks are not perpendicular but instead meet at an unusual, 45-degree angle.
Violations by trucking firm and driver surface in Amtrak crash
Thanks! This guy had been licensed to drive these trucks for only 1 month - and he had a bunch of violations from his former job as a school bus driver. Terrible.
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