TDOT bills East Tennessee girl $3,000 for guardrail that killed her

Update:This story has been updated with TDOT's new estimate of Lindsay X-LITE guardrail terminals on state roads, and new information on the department's plan to remove them. 

A Loudon County man is advocating for changes after the Tennessee Department of Transportation billed his dead daughter nearly $3,000 to replace the guardrail that killed her in a car crash last November.

In addition to refusing to pay the bill, Steven Eimers alleges the model of guardrail end involved in his daughter Hannah's death is "horribly designed" and dangerous, and that "the culture at TDOT is more concerned with making up catchy slogans than actual safety."

TDOT spokesman Mark Nagi said the bill was the result of "a mistake somewhere in processing," and that TDOT "greatly apologizes for it." The Eimers family does not have to pay, and another letter is being sent to explain the error, Nagi said.

Around 5:44 a.m. Nov. 1, Hannah Eimers, 17, was driving her father's 2000 Volvo S80 on Interstate 75 North near Niota when the car left the road, traveled into the median and hit the end of the guardrail with the driver's side door, according to a Tennessee Highway Patrol crash report.

Instead of deflecting the car or buckling to absorb the impact, the guardrail end impaled the vehicle, striking Hannah in the head and chest and pushing her into the back seat, according to the report. She died instantly.

The Volvo spun to the right and "took out approximately 15 to 20 feet of guardrail" before it skidded to a stop facing the southbound lanes on the shoulder with the rail still stuck inside the vehicle, the report reads.

Four months later, Hannah's father received a $2,970 bill from TDOT, dated Feb. 24 and addressed to Hannah, for the cost of labor and materials to install 25 feet of guardrail at the scene of the crash.

Eimers said he was "flabbergasted" that TDOT would "bill my daughter for the defective device that killed her."

"I’m shocked," he said. "The audacity. What bothers me is that they’re playing Russian Roulette with people's lives. They know these devices do not perform at high speeds and in situations like my daughter’s accident, but they leave them in place."

The guardrail end Hannah hit was a Lindsay X-LITE — a model that TDOT had removed from its approved products list just one week earlier.

TDOT removed the X-LITE from the list on Oct. 25 due to concerns "about how the telescoping w-beam, slider assembly friction reduction systems may perform if impacted at higher speeds" than 100 kph or 62.2 mph, the speed at which terminals are typically crash tested, Nagi said.

The speed limit on I-75 is 70 mph.

TDOT's removal of the model from its product list means the agency will not use it in new installations, but there are still roughly 1,000 guardrail ends on Tennessee roads, according to Nagi.

On March 31, the department will begin accepting bids for a contract to remove "most of those" terminals at places where the speed limit exceeds 45 mph, Nagi said on Friday. He did not disclose the exact number or the cost of the contract.

Damage to guardrails is reported by TDOT staff, Department of Safety officials, local law enforcement officers and members of the public, TDOT spokeswoman Jennifer Flynn said. When a crash report notes damage to a guardrail, TDOT's finance division uses the report to fill out a damage claim and bill the insurance company of the person responsible for the damage.

Damaged guardrails are replaced, not repaired, Flynn said. The guardrail end involved in Hannah's death was replaced with a different model, a SKT-SP, on Dec. 11.

Roughly two months before TDOT removed the X-LITE, the Virginia Department of Transportation removed it from its product list due to concerns with the results of crash tests performed by an independent contractor.

The Virginia agency's emphasis on guardrail safety came after whistleblower Joshua Harman won a $663 million settlement against Trinity Industries Inc., saying the company altered its ET-Plus model terminal without getting approval from the Federal Highway Administration.

Trinity has since been involved in a slew of lawsuits nationwide in which crash victims alleged the unauthorized changes caused the guardrails to spear vehicles, resulting in injuries and deaths.

"It worked perfectly and they changed it for monetary reasons and now it's killing people," Harman told the USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee.

The city of Nashville responded to the allegations by pre-emptively replacing the 20 ET-Plus guardrail ends in the area. The Virginia agency removed the ET-Plus from its product list and began replacing particular guardrails deemed more likely to be involved in crashes.

TDOT decided to wait until the Federal Highway Administration finished additional crash tests to make a decision. The federal agency ultimately ruled the model still meets the criteria for federal reimbursement, leading TDOT to remove the model from its list but not replace those already installed.

There are more than 20,000 ET-Plus terminals left on state roads — any number of which could be the more dangerous, altered model, according to Harman.

Eimers said he will push authorities to adopt a policy similar to Virginia's risk-based approach to removing and replacing the allegedly dangerous guardrails.

"I've got to be able to look the next mom or dad in the eye and say I tried to make some changes in the culture of TDOT, I tried to get some dangerous devices off the road," he said.