ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — “It's erratic driving, changing lanes very quickly,” Donald Schnell said.
He was on his way home from work in Pinellas County when he says his dash cam captured the moments leading up to a crash on the Howard Frankland Bridge back in June.
Florida Highway Patrol troopers say a 19-year-old Spring Hill man, Rolando Garza, was headed eastbound into Tampa in a Ford Focus when he slammed into a 74-year-old Sarasota woman in a Lexus RX350, sending both cars off the bridge.
While crashes on the Howard Frankland might seem pretty typical, this one had Schnell wondering if the drivers went into the waters below.
“There's so many places on that bridge, you know that this could have happened, they would have been in the water,” Schnell said.
In the dash cam video, you can see Garza speeding, crashing, then pushing the RX350 into the guardrail. The cars ended up off the roadway where some cars were parked in a construction zone. Garza was later charged with reckless driving. Schnell says after the crash, he pulled over on the side of the road to help everyone.
“It's the first time I had a real chance to use the dash cam for any good I mean, I've seen a lot of bad drivers, but this is the first action I caught on camera,” Schnell said.
He says he didn’t realize there was even a guardrail along the roadway. He says it was just obliterated.
“It opened up so wide, I didn't know there's a guardrail there," Schnell said. "And so I walked down, and I see the big chunk of it hanging off to the right. That was all concrete barriers until I walked in there and saw what was going on."
“I didn't realize there's a small section of the metal barrier there," he continued. "Certainly didn't do his job on that day. Looked like it was, there's only a couple supports holding it."
The Sarasota driver was seriously injured in the crash. Her SUV was pushed into a guardrail that did nothing to absorb the energy of the crash. That’s because as 10 Investigates has learned, the guardrail was improperly installed.
Immediately after the crash, The Guardrail Guy and safety advocate Steve Eimers called 10 Investigates to explain why he believed the rail ruptured, showing us Google Street View images of problems with the guardrail. We sent the same information to University of Alabama Birmingham Engineering Professor Kevin Schrum who agreed.
“Essentially, you see a bunch of extra holes right at that location,” Schrum said.
Schrum says if a guardrail is designed correctly, it will work as a guard and redirect the car upon impact.
“So that's a very critical feature of guardrail design,” Schrum said. “But ultimately, by putting holes in the system, you do a couple of different things to weaken the integrity of the rail. You add an extra set of stress concentrations."
"So you're removing cross-sectional area from the steel, which makes it obviously very weak, weaker than it already is," he continued. "Then by putting that hole in one of the rails for the post bolt, the only way it can separate is through a very torturous event.”
Last year, after 10 investigates spent months looking into improperly installed guardrails across the state as part of our series Unguarded. The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) did a full review of thousands of miles of guardrail and repaired or replaced nearly one-third of guardrail end treatments. FDOT secretary Jared Perdue even commented on our findings last month:
“We have been very proactive as soon as we heard that," he said. "We sent teams out all across the state to inspect guardrails to make sure they're installed properly. We identified those we quickly moved to make sure those were installed the right way and we've put a lot of programs in place to ensure that those contractors and vendors installing the guardrail and doing it properly in the future, so that is not an issue here in Florida. We spare no expense when it comes to the maintenance and preservation of our assets.”
But then, there is a crash like this and a guardrail is exposed.
“In their defense, this is something that's kind of in the middle of the rail," Schrum said. "It really doesn't stand out. But this kind of illustrates some of the other problems that we face. It's in these, these minutia, like the details themselves don't always seem to be all that important. Otherwise, you know, if you knew the guardrail was going to rupture and kill or hurt somebody, you wouldn't compromise it."
"I wouldn't think that you would do that," he continued. "So I think it comes down to lack of understanding or training or knowledge. On a deeper level, it's not just about knowing how to pound the post and tighten the nuts down and line everything up. It's knowing why that slot is three and a half inches long and why it's important. And I think that kind of gets missed a little bit sometimes in our in our training programs and in our evaluation criteria for those crews that are installing them."
We did reach out to FDOT about the guardrail installation at the crash site but have yet to hear back.
Some advocates say the state would benefit from a guardrail garden which is a training facility where you have an example of all types of guardrail installs. It allows people to train in a controlled environment. 10 Investigates has heard from sources that it’s something Florida has talked about, and we are waiting to hear back from the state on any confirmation.
If you see a guardrail that doesn't look right, you can send it to 10 Investigates to check out. You can also watch the special Unguarded on YouTube.