A recent ABC News report interviewed the inventor of the Trinity ET-Plus guardrail system on the design change made to the guardrail end terminal in 2005 that has been linked to an increased number of crashes involving loss of limbs and death.

“I was not involved in that change, and never really understood why they did it,” explained Dean Sicking to ABC News.

The design change reduced a critical five-inch metal piece to four inches, and according to internal Trinity documents ABC obtained, that inch could save $2 per each guardrail terminal and result in “$250,000 in five years.”

In the same news report, Nicholas Artimovich of the Federal Highway Administration said that federal officials are supporting a nationwide study into the safety of the guardrail end terminals.