Officer: Caltrans OKd Route in Crash

State transportation officials approved the route that led an oversized truck under a low overpass, causing a fatal accident, a California Highway Patrol officer said Monday.

Tam Trong Tran, 36, of Westminster, was killed Friday evening when a 7,000-pound container atop the truck smashed into the overpass and toppled off the truck, slamming into his white Nissan 300ZX. He had been driving behind the truck.

The trucker, Lyle Wilson, 42, of Salt Lake City, had a Caltrans permit to drive a 15-foot-high truck along a route that included the 14-foot, 10-inch overpass on the Orange Freeway at La Palma Avenue in Anaheim, said CHP Officer J. Dunn, who investigates commercial vehicles for mechanical problems.

“He had been following his route, and the state approved his permit,” Dunn said.

Trucks higher than 14 feet must have a Caltrans permit to travel along California roads, Dunn said. The tractor-trailer was traveling from Xerxes Corp. in Anaheim, where the container, a fuel tank, was made, to Ogden, Utah.

The Caltrans application for a permit includes a space where truckers must fill in the height of the truck.

But a Caltrans spokesman on Monday would not confirm whether officials had approved Wilson’s permit or whether they had taken into account the height of his truck and the lower overpass.

“The position of the department is this is an ongoing investigation and there is no information we can release at this time,” said Dennis Green of Caltrans’ District 8 in San Bernardino.

Wilson, who was not injured in the accident, could not be reached Monday for comment.

But a trucking industry official said Caltrans is responsible for approving trucking routes for oversized vehicles as safe for the height listed on the permit.

“The larger loads are a very specialized business handled by a small number of carriers,” said Walter Hoemann, vice president of the California Trucking Assn. “For carriers that carry oversized loads . . . they work with Caltrans and make sure they’re on the right route.”

The family of the victim saw matters differently.

“Part of the fault is with Caltrans, but I think the main fault is with the driver,” said My Hue Tran of Westminster, Tran’s sister.

Tam Tran, who was single, was the third of five siblings, his sister said.

The family, she said, draws strength from their belief that his death spared the lives of many others by stopping the fuel tank.

“He sacrificed himself for others. No one else got hurt. If the cargo had rolled over on the side, think how many more people could have been hurt,” she said. “Think of how many cars were behind him.”

Wilson was driving on the Orange Freeway just before 8 p.m. Friday when he went under the La Palma Avenue overpass, which spans the transition road from the west Riverside Freeway to the Orange Freeway. His truck was carrying an empty fiberglass fuel tank that rode 15 feet high.

The impact with the overpass, 2 inches lower, knocked the 7,000-pound tank off the truck and into Tran’s car.

State and federal officials said such accidents are extremely rare because of strict state regulation of cargo heights and travel routes.

“It’s rare and freakish,” said Daniel Blower, an assistant research scientist at the Center for National Statistics at the University of Michigan. His group doesn’t keep track of such accidents because of the rarity.

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Times staff writer Tini Tran contributed to this report.