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 didnt 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 didnt 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 ...
This isn’t your typical crossing accident, the truck “slammed in to” the train as it was already on the crossing.
“...the truck slammed in to the train...”
Yes, hubby said it went into the 4th car. It seems to me like you’d have time to turn aside at least even if you couldn’t stop.
Either it was deliberate or the guy was incapacitated.
I have seen an accident where the vehicle slammed into a train. The train in this case was a light rail in Minneapolis. At this particular crossing (26th Street), the trains are going about 50 mph. The driver of the vehicle (in his late 60’s early 70’s) blew right through the crossing gate and slammed into the side of the train. The car bounced off the side, bentthe front axle. I had asked the driver if he was OK, and I get the “mind your own business”. No, not a Somali, just another lilly white Minnestoopidan liberal. Dude drives off. He was lucky, if it was a split second sooner the train would have plowed right into the car and killed him and his wife.
I live out here. I can say with confidence that it was not a Muslim or an illegal. This was a local driver, and I guessing there was some kind of medical issue. You can see the tracks for miles in both directions. It would be almost impossible not to see this train coming.
Article said it was not a local driver.
I doubt it. My boy is a RR engineer and when he was working up in Idaho, had some Gomer in a truck full of sugar beets try to beat the train. He failed.
My boy said beets hit the windshield like incoming artillery and the engineer (my boy was a conductor on that run) said "OMiGawd, I've killed him." My boy said, "No you didn't, he's over there." and pointed out the left hand window. The truck was hit just abaft of the cab, which swung around from the impact and put the driver alongside the engine. The driver was looking at the engineer with "eyes as big as dinner plates."
It seems the beet company was hiring unqualified drivers (i.e. cheap labor) and this guy didn't have a trucker's license. Maybe the same thing here. Like "Friendly Fire", "cheap labor" - isn't.
The person who was operating the truck may not be the person who WAS supposed to be operating the truck.
Trucks get stolen all the time.
Just sayin’
‘broad-siding’ a train in the middle of nowhere is odd.
I agree, I live in rural California spitting distance from the border with rural Nevada and the only Muslims I have ever seen are on TV or in the movies.
add’l info..
— snip from Reuters/Yahoo
Death toll expected to rise in Amtrak collision
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110625/ts_nm/us_amtrak_collision
—
DRIVER TRIED TO STOP
Lopez said National Transportation Safety Board officials, who took over the investigation on Saturday, were trying to determine why the truck driver barreled through closed signal arms before smashing into the side of the train.
He said skid marks indicated that the driver had tried to stop in the seconds before impact.
The fiery crash sent a plume of black smoke billowing into the air over the scene.
“The truck did in fact strike the train at the fourth car and according to witness statements the gates and lights were operational,” Lopez said.
The injured were taken to local hospitals.
skidmarks found..
maybe he was texting?
You don’t expect to run into a train in the middle of a desert, maybe he was new to area..
Trying to get it to jackknife?
I haven’t seen any overhead shots.. it was still gonna be a wreck if he tried to jackknifed it. just maybe not this bad..
empty gravel/bulk haulers would likely whip around if ya got the front end sliding around
sounds like no time to react. per article , he hit brakes at 320 feet out.. If he’s boogeying,,
Sfgate update today
a few more details..
6 killed in Amtrak train crash, 28 unaccounted for
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/06/26/MN9T1K2PVL.DTL&tsp=1
—snip —
Skid marks show the lead driver, who died in the crash and authorities have refused to identify, applied the brakes beginning at about 320 feet from the crossing but was unable to stop in time, officials said.
But more than a day after the rig, owned by John Davies Trucking of Battle Mountain, Nev., slammed into the train, little information was available about who was killed and who was missing in the collision.
—snip—
Mystifying. Still no information on the driver’s identity?
That’s not good and it does immediately make me suspect that there’s something they don’t want us to know. I think if it were just Mr. Average White Guy Trucker who nodded off at the wheel and woke up too late to do anything about it, we’d have heard that by now.
Looking at the photos, the place is an absolute flat-as-a-pancake stretch of land for many, many miles and the driver would certainly have seen the train coming. And while it’s possible to nod off at 11:00 a.m., normally most drivers, especially those with empty trailers going to pick up something, are in pretty good shape at that time of day.
My speculation is either that the truck was stolen and they actually can’t identify the driver (maybe it was the truck that was from “a small county in eastern Nevada,” as they said, and not the driver) or that there’s something inconvenient about him (namely, that he’s a foreign-born Muslim or a Muslim convert).
In that case, he might have tried to break because he was afraid he had miscalculated and would actually get across the tracks before the train arrived at that point.
In any case, please post if you find out anything more. It’s always possible that it was just a horrible accident, but they’re being so secretive about it that one wonders.
An hour later, I just checked, and still no ID released for the driver.
Seems like Americans aren’t worthy of being kept informed on what’s going on in the nation.
Very strange. When they proclaimed yesterday that there were skid marks, indicating that he had tried to brake, I thought they were adopting a very defensive tone. When they start making apologies for somebody right off the bat, there’s usually a Muslim involved.
But maybe I’m just getting cynical.
A three truck convoy - the back two trucks apparently saw the crossing was closed, the first did not.
http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/article/20110626/NEWS/110629907
It probably was an accident then, if there were three trucks. It’s hard to imagine how the driver could miss seeing the train and the gates, but at a high speed for both vehicles, there probably wouldn’t have been much time.
No issues with the crossing itself. As well marked as any and all lights, bells, gates working
No known issues with the train
Trucking company had 7 violations in 19 random inspections in the past year.
Driver was in mid-40’s and was a local - name still not released.
Have not yet determined if driver had a cell phone and if so, if it was being used at time of crash
Will not have toxicology tests back for many weeks
5 people still unaccounted for.
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