Trinity Industries is facing a class action investigation for allegedly making their guardrails unreasonably dangerous to drivers. The company’s guardrail design has already spurred more than one Trinity Highway lawsuit.

A Trinity Highway lawsuitwas recently filed by a claimant from Georgia, who alleges the company’s faulty guardrails made the car crash much worse than it had to be.

Trinity Industries is one of the main guardrail manufacturers in the United States, installing guardrails throughout the country that are supposed to meet the approval of Federal Highway Administration (FHA). However, Trinity reportedly made small but potentially fatal changes to their guardrail design in 2005 and did not notify the FHA.

This Trinity Highway lawsuit was filed by plaintiff Joshlyn T., who claims the company had designed, manufactured, and installed unsafe guardrails along Interstate 285 in Dekalb County near Moreland Avenue exit in Georgia. These guardrails were allegedly manufactured in a defective manner, which Trinity supposedly did to save money on manufacturing costs.

Overview of Trinity Highway Lawsuit

According to the Trinity Highway lawsuit, Joshlyn was driving the car northbound on Interstate 285 when she reportedly collided with the allegedly defective guardrails. The accident occurred on May 31, 2013, when her car was involved in a collision with another vehicle. The other vehicle reportedly left the scene, but the impact of the other car caused Joshlyn to collide with the guardrail.

The impact was reportedly along the guardrail face, which caused the guardrail to slice through the driver’s side door of Joshlyn’s car. According to the Trinity Highway lawsuit, she reportedly suffered serious injuries from the incident, including amputation of her right leg below the knee, as well as a number of other orthopedic and internal injuries.

Joshlyn opted to file this Trinity Highway lawsuit soon after discovering that Trinity had shaved an inch off their guardrails end terminals, allegedly causing them to be unreasonably dangerous to drivers.

Highway guardrails are metal safety barriers that are supposed to help prevent cars from veering off the road in automobile accidents. Highway guardrails consist of two parts: the guardrail face and guardrail end terminal. Guardrail faces make up the length of the guardrail, which are attached the posts that are inserted in the ground.

The guardrail end terminals are the endpoints that are installed at the beginning points of the guardrail faces, which are the reflective black and yellow stripes that can be seen while driving.

Trinity reportedly shrunk their Trinity ET-Plus guardrails by one inch, which made the width of the steel channel behind the guardrail end four inches wide instead of five. This change purportedly creates insufficient room for the guardrail face to collapse inside the channel, which is supposed to happen in case of automobile accidents.

This change can cause the guardrail to become more like a spear than a barrier, which can cut through the vehicle and any person inside the car. According to a study reported by Car and Driver, this change has caused Trinity guardrails to be four times more likely to cause a fatal car crash compared to the device’s earlier version.

This Trinity Highway Lawsuit is Case No. 1:18-cv-02976-CAP, filed in the State Court of Fulton County, State of Georgia.