Documents Confirm Route OKd in Crash

Documents obtained Tuesday confirm that a Caltrans employee approved the route that sent a big rig with an oversized load under a low overpass in Anaheim, causing a fatal accident last week.

Trucker Lyle Wilson, 42, was hauling an empty fiberglass fuel tank from Anaheim to Ogden, Utah, on Friday. While driving west on the Riverside Freeway just before 8 p.m., his 7,000-pound cargo was knocked off by the overpass, crushing Tam Trong Tran, 36, of Westminster, who was driving a car behind the truck.

On Monday a California Highway Patrol investigator said Wilson was abiding by the terms of a permit that his company, Utah-based Statewide Transport, obtained from Caltrans.

A copy released Tuesday shows that the permit noted both the load’s 15-foot height and a route from Anaheim to Nevada that included a transition from the westbound Riverside Freeway to the northbound Orange Freeway.

It was immediately before that transition that the accident occurred.

The Caltrans employee who approved the permit noted that this transition would be closed for several hours after midnight Friday, Saturday and Sunday. But there was no mention that the La Palma Avenue overpass, which crosses the freeway just before that transition begins, is 14 feet, 10 inches high--a vertical clearance on record in a Caltrans bridge database available on the Internet.

Trucks that need more than 14 feet must get Caltrans approval of a permit that includes the dimensions of the truck and the route the driver plans to take.

Caltrans spokesman Dennis Green declined to discuss anything relating to the accident while it is under investigation by the CHP. But, he said, “This is not normal for our particular operation. This is an aberration.”

Statewide Transport’s permit approval came from a Caltrans office in San Bernardino that processes permits for travel beginning anywhere in Southern California.

This regional permitting unit includes 20 employees, 17 of whom are permit writers. They process an average of 400 permits each day, or 600 permits on a busy day, Green said.

In addition to height and routing, the permits also deal with overweight cargo and extra-long or extra-wide tractor-trailers.

About 80% of the permits are approved, while the remainder are rerouted or denied for various reasons, Green said.

Trucking companies specializing in oversized cargo described Caltrans’ permitting and route approval system as among the most accurate in the nation.

“It’s by far the best,” said Brad Goodfellow, a dispatcher for Performance Transport Inc. in Chino. Since 1991, the company has specialized in hauling oversized or overweight construction equipment throughout Southern California and sometimes into Nevada and Arizona.

“As extensive as the highway network is, I’m very impressed at [Caltrans’] ability to route on such a huge infrastructure,” Goodfellow said. “I can’t imagine how many miles of highway and freeway there are.

“In the last five years, we have not had any accidents or incidents because Caltrans has given us an incorrect route,” Goodfellow said. “A lot of that could be attributable to the fact that we know the area. But the [incorrect routes] I do send them--they have always been caught.”