Big-Rig Driver Arrested After Crash Probe

A truck driver whose careening big rig killed a local optometrist in a 12-vehicle crash was arrested Thursday after an exhaustive two-month Anaheim police investigation found that he was under the influence of methamphetamine and driving with most of his brakes in poor condition.

The driver, Anthony Robert Saiz, 47, of Lakewood, was also driving on an expired license and carrying a stash of clean urine from a family member, possibly to be used in case of a random drug test, according to the Police Department’s 222-page report.

“This tragedy obviously could have been avoided in many different ways,” Anaheim Police Sgt. Rick Martinez said.

Police arrested Saiz on Thursday morning while he was having a doctor’s appointment. Saiz is being held at an area hospital with bail set at $100,000. He suffered broken legs and internal injuries in the March 8 accident. Police declined to divulge the name of the hospital.

Also Thursday, the district attorney filed charges against Saiz accusing him of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, felony driving under the influence and driving on an expired license, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Mike Flory. The maximum penalty for the three charges is 13 years and eight months in prison.

The investigation has focused on Saiz, and police said it is too soon to say whether any charges will be filed against his employer, Peterson Bros. Construction. Seven of the eight brakes on the heavily loaded big rig were found to be faulty.

Attorney Wylie Aitken, who has been retained by the family of accident victim Kenneth Michael Larkin, said, “There seems to be, unfortunately, plenty of blame to go around.”

The family declined to comment Thursday.

The accident occurred on a stretch of Imperial Highway at Nohl Ranch Road known for accidents. Saiz was driving a dump truck carrying a heavy load of gravel and hauling a tractor-trailer when he apparently lost his brakes on a steep hill and crashed into numerous cars.

“The brakes faded, the brakes faded and I hit the air horn,” Saiz later told police.

The crash sparked immediate outrage from neighbors who have had long-standing concerns about speeding truckers because of two nearby schools. Several Anaheim Hills residents and Larkin’s family spoke out at a City Council meeting, demanding that police and city officials do something to increase safety. At the same intersection, there had been several big-rig crashes in recent months as a result of runaway trucks barreling down the steep hill.

After the March accident, the city adopted a nine-point plan that included lowering the speed limit for truckers from 40 mph to 25 mph, increasing enforcement and truck inspections and installing signs discouraging truckers from traveling the route.

But even before police completed their investigation, there were early indications that the accident might have been avoided with better scrutiny of the truck, Saiz’s driving record and the steep route.

Saiz was driving without the proper city permits and his load was more than 2,000 pounds overweight. His driver’s license had expired nearly one year earlier and his employer had been notified three times by the Department of Motor Vehicles that the license needed to be renewed. A DMV records check also indicated that he had been cited at least seven times since May 1998 for such infractions as speeding, driving an overloaded big rig and faulty brakes.

In addition, brake problems had been reported three months earlier on the same dump truck involved in the crash. Saiz was responsible for checking the truck before each trip.

Saiz’s family declined to comment Thursday.

After the accident, the truck was reviewed by the California Highway Patrol’s Multidisciplinary Accident Investigation Team, which found that seven of the eight brakes were out of adjustment or inoperable. Under trucking industry standards, the truck should have been taken out of service if just two brakes were defective, according to the CHP’s findings.

In a spot check after the accident, the CHP also found problems in four other Peterson trucks severe enough that it ordered them out of service.

The company’s maintenance program was inadequate to ensure that the trucks are kept in a safe and proper operating condition, the CHP found. It also found that the company should perform more frequent and thorough inspections of the trucks. All of their findings were turned over to the Anaheim Police Department, the primary agency conducting the investigation.

“This thing was dangerous from the start,” Martinez said.

Mike Scippa, executive director of Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways, a group that lobbies for stricter trucking laws in California, said the Anaheim Hills crash is the “worst combination of elements coming together to create a tragedy.”

Morphine as Well as Methamphetamine

Urine tests showed that Saiz was under the influence of both methamphetamine and morphine at levels considered “medium abuse,” according to a toxicology supervisor at the Orange County Crime Lab.

When police searched the truck, they found Saiz’s backpack, which held a year-old DMV renewal notice and a plastic bottle filled with urine. The urine was later determined to belong to a male family member.

“That is just despicable,” Scippa said. “It makes you wonder how many other drivers are doing the same thing.”

Peter McNabb, general manager of Peterson Bros. Construction, said the company is reviewing its policies to determine what action should be taken against Saiz. He called it a tragedy that drivers can circumvent the random testing.

He said the DMV notices were difficult to read and that he had not realized Saiz’s license had expired.

McNabb also said he relies on his drivers to perform daily maintenance checks. The day of the crash, Saiz had completed a safety checkoff, signing and marking paperwork that said he had checked the truck’s brakes. “Seemingly, he never really did it,” McNabb said.

The company already conducts random drug testing and has drug policies that are more stringent than those required for school bus drivers, McNabb said.

“We believe that we have always held in high regard our safety practices,” McNabb said. “We operate 205 trucks on the road every day and have a tremendous safety policy toward operating those trucks for the 18 years we’ve been in business.”

But McNabb said his company is responding seriously to the findings. “There are things that need to be changed, and we are stepping up to the plate,” he said. Since the crash, McNabb said the company has hired outside mechanics to retrain drivers on inspecting their trucks and has reviewed every fleet vehicle.

But Luis Macias, a 44-year-old Victorville man injured in the March crash, said it was the company’s responsibility to hire good drivers.

“I don’t know what they were thinking,” Macias said. “That guy shouldn’t have been on the street. . . . I was lucky, but it was scary--really, really scary.”

Even now with lower speed limits and stricter enforcement, neighbors said they would like to see commercial truck traffic eliminated except for local deliveries.

“I have no confidence that this won’t happen again,” resident Melissa Smith said. “Not a day goes by when I don’t hold my breath when going through that intersection.”

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Times staff writer Stuart Pfeifer contributed to this report.