Illinois Official: 'No Basis' to Hold Trucker's License in Amtrak Accident
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Illinois state senators push for "There is no basis in state law which allows me to hold the license," Secretary of State Jesse White said today in a statement.
White's announcement came as Jim Hall, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, told a Senate subcommittee in Washington that it's "surprising" that Illinois had allowed the driver to keep his license after several earlier traffic violations. The Senate Surface Transportation subcommittee on railroad grade crossing safety was meeting today to discuss the Amtrak crash that killed 11 people and injured more than 100.
The secretary of state's office suspended John R. Stokes' license Jan. 25 for 60 days after learning he had received three speeding tickets within a year while driving a commercial vehicle in Indiana. But after a driving course, he obtained a probationary permit to cover the suspension period, which ended today.
White's lawyers earlier this week tried to determine if there was a way to revoke the 58-year-old Manteno man's license even though he has not been charged in the train accident.
Stokes has a long history of traffic citations in the 31 years he has had an Illinois driver's license, including 13 driving-related convictions and involvement in nine accidents
efore the train collision, state records show.
Those records do not include a pair of speeding tickets received in Illinois for which Stokes received court supervision. State law does not require such records to be forwarded to the secretary of state office.
"I have very serious problems with much of his driving record. I am troubled that court supervisions have not been reported to my office," said White, who plans to form a task force to study how Illinois can improve standards for commercial licenses. "Quite frankly, if the choice were mine, I would not return the CDL until local authorities have completed their report ... on the (Amtrak) accident."
Earlier this week, Stokes' attorney, Leonard Sacks, criticized White's office for trying to find a way to revoke Stokes' license before the investigation into the train accident has concluded.
Sacks has said Stokes, who was driving a steel-laden truck when the City of New Orleans train struck his vehicle near Bourbonnais, about 50 miles south of Chicago, did not attempt to go around crossing gates. The crossing's warning system likely malfunctioned, he said.
The NTSB has said three witnesses to the crash have given possibly conflicting statements about whether the truck was on the tracks before warning signals and crossing gates activated.
