truck vs. train, deadly accident, Churchill County, NV

Just in, engineer's name was Casey Jones and he was watching his speed.

 

From Yahoo News:

 

Seems the driver has a checkered past.
Only started working for the company in May.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/06/27/BA461K37NM.DTL&tsp=1

 

Checkered past?? That's putting it lightly. 6 tkts in 2 yrs? This guy shouldn't have been operating any motor vehicle.

 

As a proud Nevadan I can tell you that the trucking company who employed Lawrence Valli does NOT have a great reputation. Due to the fact that John Davisare just involved in intrastate trucking and that if you stay away from the urban areas (Reno & Las Vegas) you can get away with a lot of things that interstate truckers would not get away with. I know the crossing where the accident occurred, perfect visibility down the tracks in each direction and a driver would either have to be asleep/drunk or trying to beat the train to the crossing (my bet). If you want to see the best reporting so far (IMO) on this accident see this link. Unfortunately, for some unknown reason this website took the photo of the car he rear-ended on I-80 in the recent past. Here is a reference to the accident from examiner.com:

Unbelievably, the accident repeated circumstances of another crash where Valli hit a car at 75 mph on Interstate 80 near Reno in July 2007. Valli ‘failed to react quickly enough’ and rear-ended a Toyota Camry, according to a police report. He was cited for speeding. The 2007 wreck left the Toyota crushed, butthe passengers fortunately had only minor injuries. Valli said in a written court statement that the Toyota "slowed down too much for me to stop in time and I drove over the rear of the car." Other witnesses estimated that Valli had been going 75 mph when the Toyota stopped.

After the 2007 accident, Valli found work in California where, over the next two years, he was cited five times for speeding in a commercial vehicle and once in a personal car. Three of the tickets were for speeding while driving a school bus. He was also cited for using a cell phone while driving a personal vehicle and for driving a commercial vehicle while not wearing a seat belt. Reno trucking carriers involved have no explanation for how he was allowed to continue driving.

If characters like this aren't prevented to drive commercial vehicles by companies voluntarily, then all of us who are committed to safely moving a truck down the road are going to be lumped, by the public, in with this guy. Understandably so...

 

double post...sorry

 

Just FYI some of the reports are wrong, I guess he never drove a schoolbus. I passed this guy and two of his buddies a couple of weeks ago, outside Lovelock all of them yammerin, on their CB's as if their life depended on it. They all gave me the stink eye as I passed them hammered down at 65mph.

But yes, everytime I see these guys, they don't know how to use a turn signal, but that's pretty par for the course out in Battle Mountain. Heck I've almost hit a LEO doing a flying crossover and whipping out into traffic, no lights, no turn signals, nothing.

 

Read a news story this morning that Amtrak is suing the truck company for damages. correction: one of the injured attendants on the train is suing as well and The amount, a measly, $10k.

heres an article of the many out there on this event

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/30/us-amtrak-collision-idUSTRE75T5F620110630

 

Err, not quite...

That just signifies that they don't intend to sue in small claims court.

If I were an employee of John Davis Trucking I would be looking for work elsewhere.