RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Guardrails made by Trinity Industries have been at the center of lawsuits and allegations since it was revealed the company modified the design of one of their guardrails called the ET plus back in 2005 without notifying federal or state governments. Several have blamed the guardrail for lost limbs after it pierced through their cars.
“It essentially was a spear that came through my car,” said crash victim Rebecca Dryer who lost her foot in an accident.
Last year Virginia filed a lawsuit against the company claiming fraud and this week VDOT will start testing the ET plus at a facility in California. The tests come after eight federal tests on the guardrails earlier this year showed them to be safe for roads.
“It’s difficult for us to understand why the commonwealth wants to spend $300 thousand on tests that have already been run,” said Trinity spokesperson Jeff Eller.
Eller says the guardrails are perfectly safe.
“If you install this product properly, if you maintain the ET plus properly, it works as designed,” said Eller.
VDOT says it will take the federal tests into consideration, as well tests this week and other data before making a decision about leaving or removing the guardrails.
“Virginia is performing the crash test for the sole purpose of trying to make sure we do the very best that we can to make our highways as safe as possible,” said VDOT spokesperson Tamara Rollison.
“We’re not against testing, if they’re going to create new standards, then they need to test every product that’s on Virginia’s roadways,” said Eller.
When asked if VDOT would begin putting other companies’ guardrails through similar tests in the future;
“All I can speak to is what we’re doing right now and that is conducting additional crash tests on the modified et plus guardrail,” said Rollison.
The Attorney General’s office says VDOT has tracked 400-500 crashes involving guardrails since last year. Of those 225 involved the ET Plus. Four were considered questionable. All four were ET Plus guardrails. The office says the lawsuit is moving forward.
