One Man's Quest to Fix Every Deadly Guardrail
17 hours ago
- Steve Eimers met Melissa Falk in high school; they married in 1996 and had ten children through birth and adoption, including Hannah, their first.
- Hannah Eimers was a bright, creative, and generous older sister who died at age 17 in a car crash when her Volvo hit a guardrail terminal end that speared and killed her.
- After Hannah's death, Steve Eimers discovered hundreds of similar 'spearing' crashes and learned the guardrail involved was defective; he filed a wrongful-death suit against Lindsay Corporation, which settled in 2022.
- Steve shut down his window-washing business to become the 'Guardrail Guy,' inspecting guardrails across 25 states and documenting flaws on his YouTube channel.
- He found that about five percent of guardrails are 'Frankensteined' with mismatched parts, and estimates 1,000 preventable guardrail-related deaths per year in the U.S.
- Steve successfully lobbied Congressman Tim Burchett; much of his proposed 'Guardrail Manufacturer’s Transparency Act' language was included in the Surface Transportation Reauthorization bill.
- He has become a credible reform advocate, working with families of other guardrail crash victims and prompting state inspections that led to fixes of dangerous rails.