Guardrails will go up where 5 teens died after hitting a bridge support in Raleigh

Richard Stradling
·2 min read

The N.C. Department of Transportation plans to install guardrails along Capital Boulevard where five teens were killed when the SUV one of them was driving ran into a concrete bridge abutment this fall.

NCDOT is working with the City of Raleigh to determine what kind of barrier to put up and how much it will cost. The state would then need to find the money to get the work done.

The effort to install guardrails is a result of the fatal crash in October, according to Michael Moore, the city’s transportation director.

“Any time we have a fatal crash, we (both NCDOT and the City) perform investigations to determine causes for the crash and potential mitigations,” Moore wrote in an email. “Our collaboration is an outcome of the investigations.”

Moore said he couldn’t say why there aren’t guardrails already in place, “other than to say that design standards do evolve through time.” NCDOT spokesman Marty Homan said he also couldn’t say why there are no guardrails there.

It’s not clear a guardrail would have changed the outcome of the October crash. Police estimate that Kamari Strayhorn, 17, was going 80 mph when the Lexus SUV hit a concrete abutment supporting the Fairview Road overpass. Strayhorn and the four other teens in the SUV were not wearing seat belts.

The speed limit for that stretch of Capital Boulevard is 45 mph. After a long straightaway, southbound Capital bends to the left at the Fairview Road bridge, and Strayhorn went straight into the abutment, apparently without braking, according to a Raleigh police crash report.

The crash took place about 6:15 a.m. on Oct. 17, a Sunday. Also killed were Jeremiah Williams, 17, Zymeer Dennis and Lebron Staton, both 14, and 13-year-old Maikeal Freeman.

NCDOT recently installed a guardrail along northbound Capital Boulevard at the abutment for the new Wade Avenue bridge, as part of an overhaul of a one-mile stretch of Capital completed last year. Fairview Road is just north of that reconstruction project.

Homan said NCDOT will install guardrails on both sides of Capital where it passes under Fairview Road, though it doesn’t know when that will happen. The project is among numerous similar safety efforts the department has in the works across the state.

“It has to compete for funding, and we have limited resources,” Homan said.

The N.C. Department of Transportation and the City of Raleigh are working to install guardrails where Capital Boulevard passes under the Fairview Road overpass. Five teens were killed in October 2021 when the SUV one of them was driving hit the bridge abutment at right going 80 mph.
The N.C. Department of Transportation and the City of Raleigh are working to install guardrails where Capital Boulevard passes under the Fairview Road overpass. Five teens were killed in October 2021 when the SUV one of them was driving hit the bridge abutment at right going 80 mph.