Lawsuits have been filed against the Battle Mountain, Nevada, trucking company by Amtrak and by victims of the recent fiery collision of a semi-trailer truck and a passenger train in Nevada. Amtrak has sued the trucking company for negligence. According to the Associated Press, the lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Reno by the National Railroad Passenger Corp. against John Davis Trucking Co.
In their lawsuit, they assert that the company was negligent in its hiring and training of the driver, a 43-year-old who also died in the crash. The truck driver collided with the train even through warning signals had alerted drivers on the highway of the approaching train. Amtrak says that the company hired the driver even though he was incompetent or unqualified to drive the truck and inadequately trained him or failed to train him.
Two other trucks were also following the lead truck when the crash occurred. They said that the warning lights had worked properly and they had stopped in time. Skid marks show that the semi-truck driver did not hit his brakes until he was 320 feet from the train tracks. This did not give him enough time to stop and the truck skidded the length of a football field before slamming into the train and causing a fiery explosion.
Six people died in the crash including the truck driver and the train’s conductor. Twenty more people suffered injuries. Records have shown that the truck driver had been issued three speeding tickets in the last four years. NTSB investigators are still on the scene of the crash trying to determine what happened.
Source:
Amtrak sues NV truck firm over fatal crash (San Jose Mercury News)
