More questions than answers in truck-train crash
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-train-crash-20110627,0,5137205.story
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.. 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.