WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Nearly four months after his teenage daughter was killed in a car crash, a Loudoun County man was shocked to get a letter from the Tennessee Department of Transportation that billed his dead daughter nearly $3,000 to replace the guardrail that killed her.
Steven Eimers, whose daughter Hannah died in a car crash on November 1, 2016, received a $2,970 bill from TDOT, dated February 24 and addressed to Hannah. The bill asked to cover the costs for replacing 25 feet of guardrail at the scene of the car crash.
Steven has refused to pay the bill and alleges that the model of guardrail end involved in the death of Hannah is 'horribly designed and dangerous.'
TDOT spokesman Mark Nagi told the Knoxville News Sentinel that bill was the result of 'a mistake somewhere in processing,' and that the department 'greatly apologizes for it.'
Nagi added that TDOT will send another letter to the Eimers family to explain the error and assured that the family does not have to pay the fee.
According to the Knoxville News Sentinel, Hannah Eimers, 17, was driving her father's 2000 Volvo S80 on Interstate 75 North near Niota when the car left the road, traveled into the median and hit the end of the guardrail on the driver's side door.
But instead of deflecting the car or collapsing like a telescope upon impact, the guardrail end impaled the car and struck Hannah in the head and chest. She was pushed into the back seat and died instantly.
The Knoxville News Sentinel reported that the specific type of guardrail end, a Lindsay X-Lite, was removed from the state's list of approved products just a week before Hannah's car crash.
This meant that TDOT would stop installing new guardrails of this type, rather than removing the allegedly faulty, roughly 1,000 guardrail ends on Tennessee roads.
X-Lite was removed from the state's list due to concerns about how the guardrail would perform if impacted at speeds higher than 100 kph or 62.2 mph.
Meanwhile, Steven said he has been invited to a state House hearing and is anticipating a meeting with the governor. He added that he would like federal oversight on this 'extraordinarily deadly device.'
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