LENOIR CITY, Tenn. — After a tumultuous path to its passage, the bipartisan infrastructure package approved by the house late Friday. $110 billion of the $1.2 trillion package will go toward highways, bridges, and roads. The bill also includes a new federal law passed related to crash test integrity.
Stephen Eimers has been pushing for this change. His 17-year-old daughter might still be alive if this law had been in place sooner, he said.
“It should’ve never happened but this bill, what it does is it helps us prevent the next x-light from coming to market,” he said.
Eimers is a Lenoir City father of 10. He has dedicated the last five years to a successful campaign that rids U.S. roads of X-Light guardrail end pieces.
“November 1, 2016, my daughter Hannah was fatally eviscerated by a defective x-light guardrail end terminal,” Eimers said.
When hit, the guardrail end pieces were supposed to collapse to absorb the impact of the crash, but there have been several instances where the guardrail instead would act like a spear shooting through the vehicle.
This new federal law is something Eimers said he has waited for, for a long time.
“Companies are no longer going to be able to self-certify and basically cook the book. The foxes will no longer be guarding the henhouse,” he said.
He worked alongside legislators to require checks and balances on how guardrails are tested and implemented into the Senate Infrastructure Bill.
“Just to get 60 some U.S. Senators to vote on this to get the United States House to vote on it. It feels good,” Eimers said.
He hopes this will prevent these types of crashes and deaths in the future.
“By most metrics her life was insignificant, but this is going to impact worldwide,” he said. "It doesn't change what happened to Hannah. This won’t help my daughter, but it will help other people's children around the United States and around the world."
Lindsay Cooperation approved these guardrails. It told investors in an annual report it is being investigated by three agencies including the Department of Justice. The company is accused of committing material fraud against the United States.