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Driver was released, cooperated with investigators, and impairment does not appear to be an issue, officials said.

Look at the top pic. Bicycle debris are all over traffic lanes. Based on the only evidence available, I’d say they were moving dangerously slow in traffic lanes and got plowed by the truck.

Bicycle debris are all over traffic lanes. Based on the only evidence available, I’d say they were moving dangerously slow in traffic lanes and got plowed by the truck.

Read the story again. The cyclists had a safety vehicle trailing them with its hazard lights flashing. Some of the cyclists had fallen behind the safety vehicle, which is on them, BUT ...

The truck struck cyclists behind the safety vehicle, then hit the safety vehicle, and then cyclists in front of the safety vehicle were hit as well, whether by the truck or by the safety vehicle being shot forward from the collision, the story doesn't say.

The truck was coming way too fast and missed the flashing hazard lights. One might quibble over the cyclists behind the safety vehicle, but the fact is, they must have been very close to it. The truck would not have kept going after striking multiple cyclists. That it plowed through cyclists, hit the safety vehicle and then struck more cyclists means that the whole group was tightly packed.

"...(Truck) driver was released, cooperated with investigators, and impairment does not seem to be an issue, officials said..."

Well, a very big turn of events, it seems. The crash investigation uncovered significant drug impairment.
Drivers high on drugs and alcohol fail to control vehicles, fail to see others, and frequently responsible for tragic collisions. It appears that happened here.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — The driver of a box truck that struck and killed five bicyclists on a Nevada highway last week had a high level of methamphetamine in his system, prosecutors said Wednesday.

The 45-year-old man from Kingman, Arizona, faces 12 felony charges, including driving under the influence and reckless driving, in a criminal complaint filed in Las Vegas.

He was arrested Wednesday in Kingman and will be extradited to Nevada, where the charges he faces could put him in state prison for decades, the Clark County district attorney said.

The man had told investigators after the Dec. 10 crash that he fell asleep at the wheel on southbound Highway 95 between Boulder City and Searchlight.

Around 9:40 a.m., his truck ran into a group of about 20 bicyclists accompanied by an escort car. It hit several who were riding behind the support vehicle — a Subaru Outback — and then pushed that car into the bicyclists in front of it. Five people were pronounced dead at the scene.

The driver said he was on his regular work route, a 130-mile run from Las Vegas to Kingman by way of Bullhead City, prosecutor Eric Bauman said.

The initial announcement from the Nevada Highway Patrol said alcohol or drug impairment was not suspected, but blood tests showed he had nine times an allowable amount of methamphetamine in his system, Bauman said.

Prosecutors indicate driver was using methamphetamine — Mercury News