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Producer of Highway Guardrails to Halt Sales
The Center for Auto Safety is the nation’s premier independent, member driven, non-profit consumer advocacy organization dedicated to improving vehicle safety, quality, and fuel economy on behalf of all drivers, passengers, and pedestrians.
10/24/14
Trinity Industries, facing mounting criticism that its guardrails can impale drivers in crashes, said on Friday that it would stop selling the product, which 13 states have now banned, until further testing could be completed.
The announcement is a sharp reversal for the company, which had continued to sell the guardrails even as state after state this week said that they had banned further installations.
On Monday, a jury found that Trinity had defrauded the federal government when it failed to inform the Federal Highway Administration of changes that it made to the guardrail in 2005. The next day, the agency demanded that the guardrail be retested, citing concerns that the new design had made it prone to malfunction.
“The right thing to do is to stop shipping the product until the additional testing has been completed,” said Gregg Mitchell, the president of Trinity’s highway products subsidiary. Mr. Mitchell said the company was still confident in the product, known as the ET-Plus.