According to James, his son wanted to ride on a train because he had never been on one before. The two boarded an Amtrak train from Salinas. The train, with 279 passengers on board, crashed into the back of a truck at about 12:08pm. According to Amtrak representatives, none of the passengers on the train were injured on the crash. In fact, most of them didn't even feel the impact of the crash. The truck was hauling approximately 40,000 pounds of tomatoes. According to witnesses to the accident, the truck driver never attempted to stop before the crash.
The California Highway Patrol says the cause of the train accident is under investigation. Amtrak is handling the probe because the accident occurred on private property. All passengers on the train were sent to their destinations on buses.
The train accident is the third major one in three years involving Amtrak in Monterey County. In 2007, an Amtrak train crashed into a car close to the site of Tuesday's crash, killing a female motorist. In 2008, an accident between an Amtrak train and a pickup tuck at a private railroad crossing killed one man.
In other train safety news, San Francisco's Municipal Railways transit system is under fire for the increased number of accidents involving its trains. There was plenty of debate at the Board of Supervisors City Operations and Neighborhood Services Committee meeting this week. MUNI's chief safety officer James Doherty said at the meeting that his agency understood that there was a need for improvements.
A number of these accidents involving MUNI trains are operator errors, and not mechanical failures. This has raised serious concerns from commuters who wonder what kind of hiring practices and oversight systems are at place at the railway system.
The agency says that steps have been taken to prevent operator-involved accidents. For instance, central control will now have the ability to bring a train to a stop remotely, in case a operator switches from automatic to manual control with no permission. According to MUNI operators, there will also be random checks conducted to determine whether MUNI operators are following all standard safety protocols. This includes a ban on cell phone use, which has come into focus because of several high profile train accidents involving cell phone use by train operators. Last year's Metrolink train crash was linked to cell phone use by the operators of both the Metrolink train as well as the Union Pacific freight train it collided with. At MUNI itself, close to a dozen operators have been suspended over the past four years, for violating cell phone rules.
Trains can only be safe as the competence and training of the operators who operate them. MUNI seems to have a lot of work to do with better oversight of employees, enhanced training, and probably, better hiring practices.
The Reeves Law Group is a law firm with offices throughout California dedicated exclusively to the representation of personal injury victims Please visit our website at trlglaw.com. If you desire a free consultation on a personal injury matter, please call us at (800) 644-8000 or email us. The Reeves Law Group is not acting as legal counsel for any party in the matters discussed in this posting.
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