Almost four months after his 17-year-old daughter Hannah's tragic death, Steve Eimers was surprised to get a letter from the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) with her name on it. But when he opened the letter, Steve told the Washington Post that he couldn't help but drop it on the floor: It was a bill for $2,970 to replace the guardrail that had killed his daughter on impact in a November car accident.
"It’s obscene," Steve told the Washington Post. "They will kill you and then they will bill you. The bill was absolutely tasteless.… It’s almost comical. It’s like the most obscene comedy skit you can come up with."
TDOT spokesperson Mark Nagi told the Knoxville News Sentinel that the department "greatly apologizes for" sending the bill, which was sent due to "a mistake somewhere in processing." He continued that TDOT would explain the error to the family in a followup letter along with the assurance that they do not have to pay the fee — but the Eimers family says the letter isn't the only thing TDOT has to explain.
According to the Knoxville News Sentinel, Hannah was driving her father's 2000 Volvo S80 to school on November 1, 2016, when the car drove into the median and hit the end of a guardrail on the driver's side door. But rather than crumple or telescope like guardrails are supposed to do upon impact, it impaled the car and hit Hannah in the chest and head. She was pushed to the back seat and killed on impact.
"It should have been, at worst, a minor-injury accident with property damage — probably little to no injury," Steve, an emergency medical technician who has seen many highway crashes, told the Washington Post. "The girl that was with her in the other seat had a little, tiny cut."
The Knoxville News Sentinel reports that this specific type of guardrail end had actually been removed from the state's list of approved products a week before Hannah's car accident — but that just meant TDOT would stop installing new ones, rather than removing the approximately 1,000 models currently on Tennessee roads.
The TDOT spokesperson said that while the guardrail is supposed to collapse (like a telescope) upon impact, there was concern about how it would perform at speeds higher than 62 mph, and the speed limit where Hannah was driving was 70 mph.
The Knoxville New Sentinel reports that the maker of the guardrail end has been involved in numerous lawsuits from crash victims alleging that the product has caused injuries and deaths. The local paper also reported that TDOT will begin accepting bids for a contractor to remove the allegedly faulty guardrails at all roads exceeding a 45 mph speed limit starting March 31.
In the meantime, Steve is going to be speaking at the Tennessee State Capitol to try to raise awareness for unnecessary roadside dangers.
"I was invited to a state House hearing," he told the Washington Post. "I’m anticipating a meeting with the governor, but I’d like federal oversight on this. This could be an extraordinarily deadly device."
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