Father of guardrail crash victim hopes Trump will hear story and act

Knoxville News-Sentinel (TN)

Jan. 08--President Trump is slated to visit Nashville on Monday, and one East Tennessee man hopes the story of his daughter's death will move Trump to take action.

Stephen Eimers' 17-year-old daughter, Hannah, died in November 2016 when her car left the interstate in McMinn County and struck the end of a guardrail that impaled her vehicle.

The guardrail Hannah struck -- a sparsely-used model called the Lindsay X-LITE -- has since been tied to at least 10 deaths across five states, with some transportation officials and lawmakers expressing concerns about its performance in crashes.

Several states that use the X-LITE have begun replacing the guardrails, while several that don't have resolved never to install them.

"It will continue to kill until it is removed from the ground," Stephen Eimers said.

Hannah's not the only one who was killed in a crash involving an X-LITE in Tennessee.

Jacob Davison, 18, and Lauren Beuttel, 21, were killed when the car Davison was driving left the interstate in Cumberland County and struck an X-LITE. Wilbert Byrd, 69, was killed in a similar crash in Chattanooga.

The guardrails in those two crashes did not collapse properly when struck, causing the metal ends to impale the vehicles, Tennessee Department of Transportation officials have said. The families have since filed wrongful death lawsuits against the guardrails' creators and installers.

After reviewing those crashes, TDOT announced plans to spend millions to replace the X-LITE guardrails on state roads, a project that is nearly 45 percent complete.

TDOT Commissioner John Schroer, who is also president of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, wrote a letter to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), saying Lindsay could not clarify the X-LITE's unclear installation instructions, and that the product led to "unacceptable safety levels."

Guardrail installers in Arizona reported having difficulty constructing the X-LITE guardrails, while crews in Rhode Island expressed concerns about their quality, according to an FHWA survey obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

In April 2017, Eimers, joined by the families of Beuttel and Byrd, called on the Federal Highway Administration to rescind its reimbursement eligibility letter for the X-LITE. Such letters allow states that use the product to receive federal funds.

The Federal Highway Administration asserts those letters aren't endorsements of products, but state departments of transportation -- most of which don't conduct their own crash tests -- rely heavily on the letters to decide which products to use on their roads.

The FHWA continues to weigh the request of the crash victims' families but has not rescinded the letter.

In statements, Lindsay Corporation has pointed out that fact and has maintained that the X-LITE's "inability to singly prevent every tragedy does not indicate a flaw or defect."

"Information gained from the handful of states who use the X-Lite has, as yet, offered no specific justification for removing its federal funding eligibility," FHWA spokesman Doug Hecox said in an email Monday.

Since the families requested that FHWA rescind the letter, more people have died in crashes involving X-LITE guardrails, which make up roughly 1 percent of all the guardrails in America. Twenty-nine states have X-LITEs installed, according to an inventory conducted by FHWA.

Julia Melendez, 22, died after crashing into an X-LITE in New Hampshire on June 2, 2017, New Hampshire Department of Transportation Bill Boynton confirmed.

Orlando de la Cruz, 24, and Juan Mateo Herrera Jr., 25, were killed July 11, 2017, in a crash involving an X-LITE in Laredo, Texas, Texas Department of Transportation spokesman Raul Leal confirmed.

It's not clear if the guardrails performed properly in those crashes.

Trump is expected to speak Monday at the American Farm Bureau Federation's 99th Annual Convention in Nashville.

Eimers wants U.S. Rep. Diane Black, R-Tennessee -- who reportedly plans to travel with Trump from Washington, D.C., to Nashville -- to talk about the X-LITE with President Trump. Eimers has repeatedly contacted Black and even paid for a billboard outside her office in Cookeville.

"REP. BLACK," the billboard reads, "Please Ask Trump About The X-Lite and FHWA (Federal Highway Administration)."

Eimers said he's reached out to every state governor but feels Black in particular should have "a vested interest in this."

"This touched her district. One of the worst accidents involving the X-LITE occurred in her district when two teens lost their lives when they were fatally impaled," Eimers said, growing emotional while referring to the crash that killed Davison and Beuttel.

Eimers wants Black to talk to Trump in hopes that he can get the FHWA to rescind the X-LITE's reimbursement eligibility letter, a move Eimers believes would "effectively trigger a national recall."

"I'm doing this so that nobody else ever has to be in the position that my family's been in," Eimers said.

"I've been active for almost a year, and I'm tired."

Reporter Travis Dorman can be reached at 865-342-6315 or at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @travdorman.

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