Trinity highway guardrails have been previously criticized for allegedly being unsafe, leading to severe injuries.

How Are Highway Guardrails Supposed to Work?

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration, highway guardrails are a safety barrier intended to shield a driver who has left the road.

The guardrail face is the long, metal portion of the barrier which is intended to direct the vehicle back towards the road. The end terminals on the exposed end of the guardrail reportedly serve to reduce the force of a collision and keep a vehicle safe.

Depending on how a guardrail is designed, the end terminal may cause the vehicle to decelerate to a stop, pass behind the guardrail in a more controlled manner, or otherwise survive a crash without unnecessary damage to the occupants or other drivers. This may be seen with guardrails “gating” or curling in on themselves.

Are Trinity Highway Guardrails to Blame for Injuries and Deaths?

Trinity guardrails have been implicated in numerous car accidents and their resulting injuries and deaths.

Consumers claim that the company’s ET Plus guardrails were changed from their older, more reliable design without informing buyers. The company reportedly changed its guardrail from 5 inches to 4 inches which allegedly caused the resulting product to weigh 100 pounds less. Changes were also allegedly made to the guardrails’ end terminals, making them no longer symmetrical to the rest of the rail.

As a result of these changes, Trinity highway guardrails allegedly fail to function as intended. Instead of curling up and helping keep cars safe in collisions, the newer design allegedly causes the guardrail to lock up and bend. In some cases, the guardrails allegedly puncture the colliding vehicle and cause injuries or deaths.

In July 2018, a Missouri man took legal action against Trinity, claiming that their guardrails caused his daughter’s death. In December 2017, Brett A.’s three daughters were allegedly driving to their brother’s house. Due to the icy roads, Brett’s daughter allegedly fishtailed and hit the guardrail.

Brett reportedly received a phone call from his daughter. According to Brett, she was screaming and calling “daddy” at the time of the call. By the time he made it to the scene of the accident, his 16-year-old Charity had allegedly been pronounced dead.

Brett claims that his daughter would have survived the accident if it were not for the Trinity guardrail they collided with. Although Charity was sitting in the back seat with her seatbelt on, she had allegedly been killed when the guardrail pierced the vehicle where she was sitting.

Due to numerous accidents like the one involving Brett’s daughters, states such as Virginia, Missouri, and Kansas have reportedly banned the guardrails. Despite many states banning them, thousands of these allegedly dangerous guardrails reportedly remain on the road.

Even if transportation companies replace the guardrails as they become damaged, this would take decades. Instead, people like Brett claim that Trinity should foot the bill for the replacement of the allegedly dangerous guardrails.

“What is a life worth?” Brett asked, according to Fox4 Kansas City.