Three more states abandon guardrail model
Three more states — Vermont, Hawaii and Colorado — have banned Trinity Industries’ ET-Plus guardrail system, suspected of malfunctioning in crashes and slicing through vehicles.
Missouri already had banned the guardrail units, along with Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Nevada, Oregon and Virginia.
The Federal Highway Administration demanded two days ago that the Trinity guardrail unit be retested for safety. The federal agency had defended the product for more than two years, even after it learned that Trinity had changed the design in 2005 without notifying the agency, as required.
Also this week, a Texas jury ruled that Trinity had defrauded the federal agency. The agency still approves the ET-Plus for federal reimbursement.
| The New York Times
This story was originally published October 23, 2014 at 7:16 PM with the headline "Three more states abandon guardrail model."