Wednesday, Dec. 02, 2009

A costly bridge shortcut

Now that a second good Samaritan at a wreck scene has leapt blindly to his demise at the Beltline bridge over Crabtree Creek in Crabtree Valley, it's hard to fathom why the state installed a fence on only one side of the gap of death.

Surely Lee Eames Jr., 33, of Willow Spring, who died there Friday night, wouldn't have jumped over a low concrete barrier at the roadway's edge to escape an oncoming car if he had known the next step was about 30 feet down.

After Todd Fletcher, 26, died in a similar accident on the bridge's other side four years ago, the state Department of Transportation put up a fence -- but only on that side, not both.

The estimated cost of a fence in the known hazard area: $5,000 or less.

The amount Eames' family now could sue the state for: up to $1 million.

The state could argue after Fletcher's death that it had no way to know before then that the bridge was unsafe. It can't now.

Instead, the state's cheap choice of a one-sided solution looks like negligence.

The transportation department's early defense is that the side it put the fence on is higher than the side Eames was on, so he should have been able to see it and know not to try to jump 5 feet across the gap.

In a split second. As a car hurtled toward him. In the dark, without street lights.

And that assumes that Eames realized the gap existed, which I doubt. I bet he thought he was hopping over the wall onto concrete, not to his doom.

Driving the Beltline from Six Forks Road to Glenwood Avenue, the center goes from a median planter before the bridge to a solid barrier after it -- with the gap between.

Walking the city's well-traveled greenway beneath the bridge, it's horrifying to imagine someone plunging there to his death.

Raleigh leaders want the DOT to inspect and safeguard all highway bridges in the Capital City.

The agency says it's reviewing all 17,000 across the state, which is smart.

Meanwhile, here's an immediate suggestion: Seal the cursed gap of death.