She was visiting Georgia.
On the evening of October 31st.
And was headed back to Tennessee early
in the morning on November 1st, 2016.
She was coming north on 75
and just never made it home.
Do you remember the last
time you spoke to her?
Who's in our drive?
Steve Eimers can't remember exactly
what he said. He didn't know that
conversation was in our driveway,
would be their last. We never saw her
again at 17 years
old. His daughter Hannah was
killed in a crash just across the
Georgia border in Tennessee. What a
guard drill going through
a car wheel. Due to a body,
suddenly Steve says a device meant to
guard against Danger betrayed his daughter.
This product is inherently
defective and deadly.
A wrongful death lawsuit alleges
Hannah crashed into an X light
guardrail, which then failed to
telescope like it's designed to
do. Instead, attorney say it
pierced through the car through
Hannah and the suit argues.
It wasn't the first time.
The X light failed.
It cuts people in half and decapitates
it. It disembowels. Disarticulate some.
And you are literally left to pick
up the pieces. We contacted every States
Department of Transportation across
the country 29, including Georgia,
said the X Lite was installed on their
roads at some point less than a year
after Hannahs death, Tennessee began
removing them from its highways.
It sent out this letter to the
Federal Highway Administration,
saying the state believes the product
does not provide adequate protection
of motorists based on crashes.
Where the rail penetrated a vehicle cabin,
17 other states followed Tennessee's
lead in removing them, Georgia did not,
and as many as 300X Lite guardrails
are still on its roads.
Today it's
just wildly reckless.
I cannot understand.
Why they would leave a product
on the roadside that they have
identified is not performing the
Georgia Department of Transportation
declined to comment on camera
about why it will not remove.
The guardrails from Georgia roads.
GDOT confirms 300X lights were
sold to contractors in the state.
But when we asked where those
guardrails were installed,
a spokesperson gave us nine known
locations tracking down the rest,
it said, would cost us how much 97?
$1000, that's because GDOT doesn't know
where all the X Lite guardrails are.
It doesn't keep track.
They said they don't have
a map of where they're located.
Is that a problem? I think
that's a big problem. It's you know,
potentially 300 pieces of of rail
that are waiting to hear some Pearson
firewall and go into a vehicle,
and that's too many Leslie. Kroger is
an attorney who says her firm filed.
Four lawsuits involving 5 deaths tide,
2X Lite guardrails including
the death of Hannah Eimers.
Do you think it's fair to say it's only
a matter of time before somebody hits one
of these guardrails and gets injured or
killed by them like your clients have?
Unfortunately, that is a very real
possibility. That possibility could have
become a reality for whoever hit this X
light guardrail off I-75 in Henry County.
We got a copy of a letter sent in 2017.
The Federal Highway Administration,
George Division says the impact
on this guardrail was minimal,
but had it been more significant,
it could have speared the vehicle we
had just not seen that type of failure mode.
In guardrail in a couple of decades, while
Georgia DOT won't talk to us,
Tennessee's DOT did Interstate type
high speed, you know, impacts us where
we were seeing problems with them,
where the speed limit is posted.
At 45 miles an hour is where we
saw that we felt that there was a
risk out there and our investigation
found multiple X Lite guardrails
on busy highways where the speed
limit is 65. Along I-75, we found
at least four in Henry County.
At least two in Gordon County,
Georgia won't remove them.
It's also no longer installing them.
No state is, and not just
because of these crashes.
The X light no longer meets
safety standards to be on roads.
Get a product is on the roadway in
the safety standard has been risen.
Why is it still there? Because there's
enough evidence. In your opinion
that these should be taken off the
roads. I will say I would, I.
Would not want to drive next to one.
Making sure people aren't driving
next to one is Steve's mission,
but he says he keeps hitting
roadblocks trying to get Georgia
DOT to remove the X Lite. I want
to be able to say when I get a
call from somebody in Georgia,
I did everything in my power
to stop and prevent what
happened to your loved one.
And I'm sorry. They didn't listen.
They will eventually.