After 2.5 years, state installing guardrail where five teens died in Raleigh crash

Richard Stradling
·2 min read
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The N.C. Department of Transportation this week will install a guardrail in front of bridge supports on Capital Boulevard where five teens were killed in a crash more than 2.5 years ago.

NCDOT contractors are scheduled to begin the work Tuesday where Fairview Road crosses the southbound lanes of Capital. Five teens — ages 13, 14 and 17 — died when the SUV one of them was driving slammed into a concrete pillar in October 2021.

The Fairview Road bridge piers are just a few feet from the pavement on a section of Capital where the speed limit is 45 mph. But the spot was not on any list for a guardrail until the crash, city and state officials say.

The city and NCDOT quickly agreed that some sort of barrier was needed to keep cars from hitting the bridge supports. That was followed by a deliberate process of evaluating what type of guardrail and the cost, then seeking money from a state safety program and finding a contractor to do the work, said James Sudano, the city’s traffic safety engineer.

“There can be a lot that goes into implementation, beyond just going out there and throwing up a guardrail,” Sudano said in an interview. “In an ideal world, yes, we want things done ASAP, but these processes to get things in the ground can take a while sometimes.”

Contractors for The N.C. Department of Transportation will 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 piers at right going 80 mph.
Contractors for The N.C. Department of Transportation will 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 piers at right going 80 mph.

Fairview Road was part of a bundle of guardrail projects in Wake County approved by the Secretary of Transportation last June. The work was delayed further because of a shortage of companies able and willing to do it, said NCDOT spokesman Aaron Moody.

“We have been working with limited contractor availability and are now glad to see this moving forward,” Moody wrote in an email.

It should take two days to install the guardrail, though rainy weather could prolong the work, Moody said.

It’s not clear whether a guardrail would have saved the lives of the teens. Police estimated that Kamari Strayhorn, 17, was going 80 mph when the Lexus SUV hit the pier. After a long straightaway, southbound Capital bends to the left at the Fairview Road bridge, and Strayhorn went straight into the pillar, apparently without braking, according to a Raleigh police crash report.

None of the teens were wearing seatbelts. The crash took place at 6:15 on a Sunday morning.

All of the boys were students. They were Strayhorn at South Garner High School; Jeremiah Williams, 17, at Lumberton Senior High School; Zymeer Dennis, 14, at Wake Forest High School and Maikeal Freeman, 13, and Lebron Staton, 14, both Raleigh eighth-graders.