I-Team: Dangerous guardrails still exist years after states were told to remove them
DURHAM (WTVD) -- The guardrails on our highways are supposed to protect us in a crash but the I-Team discovered they can be dangerous and even deadly.
The guardrails in question have endings called breakaway cable terminals, which are shaped like a loop. The federal government thinks they're so dangerous that they told states to remove those 17 years ago.
Last November, two North Carolina girls were killed in a crash involving these guardrails on U.S. Highway 52 near Mt. Airy.
Half-sisters 12-year old Megan Davis and 17-year-old Taylor Thompson were killed. Their friend, Dakota Goss, a high school football player, was driving his grandmother's 2001 Ford.
Police say Goss lost control and overcorrected. The passenger side of the car hit the end of the guardrail. Troopers say he wasn't speeding, drinking or texting.
"The passenger side of the vehicle actually struck the guardrail first," said State Highway Patrol Sgt. Michael Baker. "At that point in time, the guardrail actually penetrated the vehicle -- went through the vehicle."
The guardrail split the car in half.
The car hit a breakaway cable terminal or BCT. It covers the sharp end of the guardrail and is supposed to steer the car away, not penetrate through it.
Investigators have not determined whether the BCT killed the two girls, but they say it may've been a contributing factor.
Vicki Spradley lost her son, Jacob, to a similar crash in 2013.
"It cut him, pretty much cut him in half," she remembers sadly.
The I-Team discovered other similar crashes in Arizona and Montana.
The I-Team dug-up an old memo from the federal government telling states in 1998 to remove BCTs because they're dangerous. It said they should be replaced due to "unacceptable passenger compartment intrusions...and they're "too stiff to protect drivers."
"It's very disappointing and troubling, said Dr. Dean Sicking, the inventor of six of the nine kinds of guardrail ends in use today. He was also on a national committee that banned states from buying any more BCTs nearly 20 years ago.
'I know they were killing hundreds of people per year back when they were widely used," he explained.
The I-Team hit the road on Interstate 40 and we discovered dozens of these dangerous guardrails still in use today on the stretch between Southern Wake County and Orange County.
We went to North Carolina's top highway safety engineer to find out why.
"We had set up a number of statewide projects in the late 90s and early 2000s to do just that. Is it possible for us to have missed some? The answer is absolutely," Kevin Lacy commented.
Lacy says now as a result of our investigation the NC DOT is going to work toward replacing these dangerous guardrails.
"We're going to dedicate some highway safety improvement funding. We're going to start looking across the state," said Lacy. "We're going to start at our higher speed roadways first and surveying whether or not we have any guardrail ends that are no longer compliant. If they aren't, then we are going to inspect them so we can get an estimate on what it would take, if anything, to replace those."
That's too late for two young girls from Mt. Airy, but we have to hope it'll prevent another tragedy on North Carolina highways.
