EMB ERJ 170/175 ER/LR
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Conflict Ground Conflict; Critical; Ground Event / Encounter Vehicle
Flight Crew Took Evasive Action
Airport; Human Factors
Taxiing out at LAX; we were cleared to taxi 'Charlie short of Charlie 6' by ATC. Approaching Charlie 5; a baggage vehicle drove directly in front of us on the vehicle service road; requiring me to apply maximum/full brakes to stop the aircraft from hitting the vehicle. It was a tug vehicle pulling 6-7 flat carts all connected together traveling at a fast rate of speed from our left to right. I immediately notified ATC who responded by calling 'city ops' on the same ground frequency and told them to try to figure out who pulled in front of us. We had cleared all turns and had our taxi light on per SOP and did not see this vehicle approaching at all. We estimate the nose was within 5 feet of the cart when we came to a complete stop. When we resumed taxiing; I had the FO check on the FAs to make sure they and the passengers were ok from the abrupt stop. They said that everyone was ok. We were taxiing around 10 knots when full braking was applied. It appeared that the ground vehicle did not look to see if it was clear to cross taxiway Charlie.
EMB-175 Captain reported having to brake abruptly to avoid a string of bag carts while eastbound on Taxiway C at LAX.