That’s right: Lindsay owns the lab (Safe Technologies Inc.) that conducted the safety tests that earned X-LITE its FHWA approval in 2011. If these guardrail ends are so dangerous, how did they end up on the road in the first place? Well, the X-LITE rails were tested, but you’ll never guess who did the testing. The letter also noted that some unclear X-LITE instructions “may cause installation deficiencies.”Ĭompanies Safety-Test Their Own Guardrails In a letter from TDOT commissioner Joan Schroer to the Federal Highway Administration’s (FHWA’s) Tennessee branch, TDOT acknowledged that in some crashes the guardrail ends failed to telescope as they should. So that other folks don’t lose their children in this manner.” (The other was Wilbert Byrd, aged 69, of Detroit.)īeuttel’s mother, Ladeana Gambill, told CBS News, “To think that she died senselessly-that’s why we want to bring awareness to this issue. Three of the four people who died in Tennessee after hitting X-LITE guardrail ends were aged 21 or younger, including Jacob Davison (18) of Zionville, NC and Lauren Beuttel (21) of Johnson City, TN. “They should have removed it, but their policy was to leave it on the road, playing Russian roulette with people’s lives.”

“TDOT knew this was dangerous and that it wasn’t performing well,” her father said. He said the department had mailed the Eimers family a follow-up letter apologizing for the mistake.īut an apology won’t bring back Hannah Eimers, who passed away after a crash on Interstate 75 in Tennessee on November 1, 2016. TDOT spokesman Mark Nagi said the bill was a processing error and vowed it would never happen again.

'Their policy was to leave it on the road, playing Russian roulette with people's lives.' “They had the audacity to send us a bill in her name for $3,000 for killing her,” he told news station WVLT. The bill was for the guardrail that had impaled her. One victim of Tennessee’s X-LITE guardrails, 17-year-old Hannah Eimers, received a bill from the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) after her death for nearly $3,000. Teenager Posthumously Billed for Guardrail That Killed Her We are currently pursuing lawsuits against manufacturers, and you pay nothing unless we secure you an award. If you or a loved one were injured by a defective guardrail, contact right away for a free, no-obligation legal consultation. alleging that the guardrail ends were defectively designed. Several have filed lawsuits against Lindsay Corp. The families of victims are taking action as well. There are about 1,000 X-LITE guardrail ends on the road in Virginia. Missouri and Virginia have not ruled out replacing theirs, but have not yet taken that action. The state will pay about $3.6 million to replace its 1,800 X-LITE guardrail ends. It is widely recognized that there are impact conditions that exceed the performance expectations of all safety equipment, and equipment’s inability to singly prevent every tragedy does not indicate a flaw or defect.īut Tennessee isn’t taking any chances. A statement by the president of the company’s infrastructure division, Scott Marion, reads:įor decades, Lindsay Transportation Solutions has made safety our No. Instead of telescoping-wherein the rails’ parts slide into each other, absorbing the impact of the crash-the X-LITE rails sometimes pierce the vehicle and its occupants.īut Lindsay has denied that the X-LITE guardrail ends have any structural or design flaws. The deaths are often grisly, with the guardrail acting as a spear that impales the passenger. Lindsay Transportation Systems’ X-LITE guardrail end has now been linked to at least seven deaths in three states: Tennessee (four), Missouri (two), and Virginia (one). But as with airbags, a poorly designed guardrail can wind up further injuring passengers-in some cases, fatally. Like airbags, guardrails are supposed to protect people in the event of a crash.

X lite guardrails