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The driver of an SUV who police say slammed into a moving TRAX train is recovering Wednesday evening at LDS Hospital.
31-year-old James Clafton is doing better. His condition has been upgraded from serious to satisfactory, a wonder-say police, after he slammed his Toyota 4Runner into a TRAX train that was moving 50 miles per hour.
Witnesses told police Clafton was driving pretty fast when he passed a car stopped at the crossing arms and slammed through the arms into a train.
Clafton told investigators he has no memory of what led up to the crash. It doesn't appear that drugs or alcohol were a factor.Police are awaiting toxicology reports that will determine that for sure.
UTA says this is about the thirteenth serious injury since TRAX started in 1999-not a bad number compared to cities with a similar number of riders in the same time period.
"There’s one system that had two rail grade crossings that’s had six fatalities and they’re about the same type of system we are. We have 35 rail grade crossings, and so we’ve done pretty well,” said Trax Spokesperson, Chris McBride.
