Caltrans Chief Reports Error Led to Fatality

A fatal freeway accident involving a truck too tall to clear an overpass was caused by the error of a Caltrans worker, who ignored a “critical” warning on his computer screen that the truck should have been routed elsewhere, state officials said Tuesday.

The explanation for the accident, in which a Westminster man was crushed by the truck’s falling load, was in a letter and report from Caltrans Director Jose Medina to a state Senate committee investigating truck permit safety.

Medina said the process, developed under a previous administration, lacked adequate safeguards.

“In short, too much responsibility rested with individuals with little or no room for error,” Medina wrote. “That was an unacceptable situation and has been changed.”

Medina said he ordered double-checks of all over-height permits, which are typically issued within two hours of receiving the application.

“Public safety will not be risked to save 10 or five minutes,” he said.

Tam Trong Tran, 36, was killed July 16 when a 7,000-pound container atop the truck smashed into an overpass in La Palma and fell on his trailing car.

While earlier reports indicated that three such accidents have occurred statewide in 1999, Medina cited seven incidents in which faulty permits led to trucks smashing into overpasses. In 1997, 10 bridge hits were attributed to permit error; six were reported in 1996.

In the July fatality at the Orange and Riverside freeways, the trucker had a permit to carry a 15-foot-high load along a route that had a 14-foot, 10-inch overpass.

Medina’s report said the attention of the permit writer who approved the trucker’s route was apparently diverted by another issue in routing the truck: a planned closure of a portion of the route requested.

Though addressing the road closure in the permit, the writer ignored a warning flag likened to a stop sign by Caltrans Deputy Director Randell Iwasaki, who testified at a state Senate Transportation Committee hearing late Tuesday.

Iwasaki said the employee who made the tragic error is “a very competent, long-standing permit writer with no history of making such mistakes.” Still, the writer is not issuing permits while an investigation continues, he said.

To solve the problem, Iwasaki said, the department is hiring five more permit writers and looking for computer software that would stop the user from making a mistake by freezing the screen until the warning flag is handled.

State Sen. Joe Dunn (D-Santa Ana) requested Tuesday’s hearing and is vice chair of the committee looking into the issue of truck permits. La Palma is in his district.

Pointing to state statistics showing that 200,000 truck permits are granted annually to vehicles more than 14 feet high, Dunn asked why the department does not already have such software in place.

Iwasaki and other Caltrans officials could not answer that or many other questions posed to them by Dunn and Transportation Committee Chairwoman Sen. Betty Karnette (D-Long Beach).

“I think they could have known more,” Dunn said after the hearing. “But we’re not going to stop there. We’re going to push it further.”