The Iowa Department of Transportation is not planning to pull out special ends put on guardrails that are the focus of a Texas lawsuit until they get more information from federal transportation officials. D-O-T director of traffic safety, Steve Gent (Hard G like gentleman), says the piece of guardrail in question is called the E-T-Plus end treatment.
A Texas jury awarded a 175-million dollar judgment in a federal lawsuit against the maker of the device, Trinity Industries, over the company’s alleged failure to report design changes. The changes allegedly can cause the guardrail to go through a car and several states have banned the end treatment. Gent says the D-O-T has no reason to remove them yet.
Gent says this end treatment was created to reduce accident caused by the old system.
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Federal officials have asked for a new round of crash tests in the wake of the lawsuit.
