You may have been watching Super Bowl Sunday. A commercial that aired on WPTV NewsChannel 5, was paid for by Steve Eimers. His daughter was killed in an accident in Tennessee in 2017. A guardrail pierced his daughter’s car during a highway crash.
“We're finding that in many of these accidents these guardrails are failing and instead of absorbing the energy and collapsing like a house of cards, as they are supposed to, they are getting locked up,” said attorney Ted Leopold. “These guardrails are getting hinged, so they’re acting like spears.”
Leopold says at least six people have been killed, impaled by the malfunctioning guardrails. He points to the X-Lite guardrail model, manufactured by Nebraska-based Lindsay Corporation, as the problem.
Leopold was hired by Eimers after his daughter’s death. Eimers told NewsChannel he was hoping President Trump would be watching the game on WPTV during his stay at Mar-a-Lago. He was hoping the president would see his ad. In it, Eimers offered to partner with the president to tackle what he described as a guardrail problem in this country.
“To his credit, as part of his infrastructure bill, President Trump makes mention of guardrail improvements as a goal,” said Leopold. “So we are hoping he lives up to his promise. We’ll see.”
According to Leopold, Eimers has not heard from the White House since the airing of the ad.
Lindsay issued the following response.
“Lindsay Transportation Solutions builds road safety equipment that reduces risks for drivers on America’s roads. Lindsay proactively offers a variety of training resources to help states and contractors with proper hardware installation and maintenance, such as road safety tours, a mobile app available in four languages, and onsite training. While X-LITE has successfully passed crash and safety tests in accordance with Federal standards, there is no road safety equipment that can prevent injury every time a driver fails to stay on the road. When properly installed and maintained, roadside hardware like X-LITE will reduce the number and severity of injuries sustained in car accidents. Lindsay continues to work collaboratively with road safety stakeholders on national initiatives to enhance safety on America’s roadways.”