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.