The crisis of Takata’s lethal airbags made headlines in recent years, after at least 15 people worldwide were killed by the airbags. The biggest recent violation of trust that comes to mind is Takata Corp.'s defective airbags. Sadly, time and time again, consumer rights activists discover products that actually harm the people they were intended to protect. Instead, the guardrail’s poor design may have led to multiple tragedies. The X-LITE Guardrail was designed with the best of intentions: to save people’s lives in the event of off-road drifting and serious car accidents. When a Safety Feature Hurts, Instead of Helps It’s this crucial finding that the lawsuits against X-LITE’s manufacturers hinge upon. This means that although the guardrails failed more often than not in these three crashes, the X-LITE system still allegedly caused fatal injuries even when working as intended. Nevertheless, the guardrail impaled the vehicle, killing the teen instantly. In one crash which claimed the life of a 17-year-old from Lenoir City, TN, the X-LITE was found to “telescope properly,” according to KNS, so it should have been able to absorb some of the impact from the crash. In two of the three crashes that occurred in Tennessee, reports by the TDOT found that the X-LITE guardrails did not perform as functioned - an issue that state officials attribute to the potentially unclear installation instructions provided for X-LITE systems. However, both instances of alleged negligence resulted in the X-LITE guardrail ends impaling cars in at least five of the six fatal crashes, killing the occupants of the vehicles. The X-LITE guardrails ends are made up of multiple pieces that are intended to “telescope,” or slide into each other when struck by a car, absorbing some of the impact of the crash and preventing the metal of the guardrail from penetrating the vehicle. Improperly designed and unsafe, and second, the guardrails were improperly installed due to the manufacturer’s inadequate instructions, according to KNS.
The allegations against the X-LITE guardrail ends are twofold: first, the guardrails are
Allegations Against the X-LITE Guardrails Today, we look into the X-LITE guardrail tragedy, why these guardrails are reportedly so deadly, and other examples of safety features gone wrong. X-LITE systems have been installed in at least 21 states, according to the KNS.Īlthough shocking, this isn’t the first safety feature that potentially has done more harm than good.
While Missouri has also announced plans to remove the guardrails from their state roads, it is unknown whether the other states that use X-LITE guardrails will follow suit. Now, the Tennessee Department of Transportation is spending millions to replace all of the state’s 1,800 X-LITEs.
The creators and manufacturers of the X-LITE guardrail end - Lindsay Corporation, Valmont Industries, and their subsidiaries - are now facing lawsuits alleging that the guardrail end systems are unreasonably dangerous and defective, according to the Knoxville News Sentinel.ĭespite only making up slightly more than one percent of all guardrails installed nationwide, the X-LITE systems have already been implicated in seven deaths so far in Tennessee, Missouri, and Virginia since 2016 alone. A guardrail end designed to protect motorists in the event of an off-road collision is now being removed and replaced in Tennessee and Missouri after being linked to several deaths.
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