WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Highway Administration said highway guardrail systems made by Sany Industries Inc and Road Systems Inc have “safety issues” in certain real-world crash scenarios, calling for a review of standards across the country to better protect American drivers.
       The regulator released a report on Friday that found “performance deficiencies” in five types of guardrails, three made by Trinity and two by Road Systems. The agency found that the models had performance flaws in side and low-angle crashes with the end of the guardrail, sometimes causing the guardrail to penetrate a vehicle.
       Trinity has been under intense scrutiny for the past year after a jury found the company failed to disclose changes to its ET-Plus fencing system made nearly a decade ago. In June, the federal judge overseeing the case ordered the company to pay $663 million.
       Dallas-based Trinity said the ET-Plus had passed more crash tests “than any other vehicle in its class.” The company appealed the verdict and said it believed “the evidence clearly shows no fraud.”
       The ET-Plus was designed as a roadside shock absorber and was mounted on the end of a guardrail. More than 20 lawsuits allege that Trinity’s improved version of the ET-Plus gets stuck on impact, not only failing to slow the vehicle, but penetrating it. There are about 200,000 of these devices installed along U.S. highways, according to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). The plaintiffs’ lawsuit alleges that Trinity’s improved version, the ET-Plus, has caused at least nine deaths.
       In March, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) gave the ET-Plus a satisfactory rating after eight crash tests based on older safety standards.
       In a report released Friday, the Federal Highway Administration and a coalition of state highway officials recommended tightening safety standards for newly installed roadway equipment across the country to address some of the vulnerabilities identified.
       The report’s authors selected 161 crashes for detailed analysis, focusing on those involving fatalities, serious injuries, rollovers and vehicle punctures.
       All but 22 of the crashes involved Sany barriers. The agency said that in 71 of those incidents, investigators were able to identify the system involved as a modified ET-Plus system. Investigations showed that the failures were due to both the crashes themselves and installation faults.
       In some crashes, the barriers were pierced by vehicles, while in others they rolled over or slowed sharply. The authors said they did not have enough data to compare the relative safety of different barrier systems, but they could conclude that performance issues were not limited to the modified ET-Plus system.
       John Durkos, a spokesman for Road Systems, said the Big Spring, Texas-based company’s products “are now delivering exceptional results on the road.”
       Trinity’s Eller praised regulators for their “thorough review” of energy-absorbing barrier systems and said it supported the company’s view that ET-Plus “is a robust terminal system that works as designed.”
       The regulator acknowledges that its tests cannot cover all potential accidents and that many factors can influence the effectiveness of fencing at sites.
       “Real-world crash conditions differ significantly from crash test scenarios,” the report says. “It is widely recognized in the traffic safety community that even with ‘best’ terminal design practices, crashes will occur that exceed terminal performance expectations due to the diversity of traffic patterns, field conditions, and applications.”
       Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., is urging the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) to mandate the removal of ET-Plus from highways across the country. He said Friday that states have begun retesting ET-Plus devices on their own, which “demonstrates a lack of trust in the agency.”
       The Virginia Department of Transportation said it will conduct its own series of ET-Plus crash tests starting later this month. In two tests, vehicles crashed into the end of a barrier at a shallow angle — one of the vulnerable scenarios identified in the federal report.
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