State DOTs Taking Controversial Guardrail Model Off of Approved List

Virginia's transportation department this month followed Missouri, Nevada and Massachusetts in taking off a controversial guardrail end-terminal model from its approved highway-products list. The ET-Plus model, which includes a steel fixture that is meant to absorb a vehicle's impact, is the subject of various lawsuits claiming the fixture has acted, instead, as a deadly spear.

In an Oct. 10 letter to a sales manager with Trinity Highway Products LLC, the manufacturer of the ET-Plus, the Virginia Dept. of Transportation requested additional documentation regarding the "ET-Plus tangent w-beam guardrail terminal," stating that the response to VDOT's original May 13 request was not enough.

After VDOT approved the use of the original ET-Plus system in 2000, the letter notes, Trinity "made undisclosed modifications to the ET-Plus in 2005. The modified ET-Plus is a different product than that approved by VDOT." The modification shortens to 4 in. the 5-in. channels, a change which some believe causes the guardrail to jam up, causing the stabbing effect.

VDOT requested the additional information by Oct. 24, says spokesperson Marshall Herman. On Oct. 15, the agency sent a memo to its area engineers stating that, while the original model with 5-in. channels is still on the approved product list, the modified version is not. Contractors that might already have bought the unapproved product for installation on active projects have an option to wait until after Oct. 24 or else proceed to obtain an approved product.

This month, a retrial commenced in Marshall, Texas. Joshua Harman, a Trinity competitor, filed a false-claims lawsuit on behalf of the government, claiming the company never notified the Federal Highway Administration of the altered model but continued to receive funding. The first case in July was declared a mistrial.

Aileen Cho, ENR's senior transportation editor, is a native of Los Angeles and recovering New Yorker. She studied English and theater at Occidental College, where a reporter teaching the one existing journalism course encouraged her to apply for the LA Times Minority Editing Training Program. Her journalism training led to her first stories about transportation, working as a cub reporter with the Greenwich Time. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and New York Times. Many of her experiences with engineers and contractors have inspired material for her alternative theater productions way, way off Broadway. For ENR, Aileen has traveled the world, clambering over bridges in China, touring an airport in Abu Dhabi and descending into dark subway tunnels in New York City. She is a regular at transportation conferences, where she finds that airport and mass transit engineers really know how to have fun. Aileen is always eager to hop on another flight because there are so many interesting projects and people, and she gets tired of throwing her cats off her computer in her home office in Long Beach, California. She is a very conflicted Mets/Dodgers fan.

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