The Georgia Department of Transportation paid $2 million to settle claims stemming from a 2013 wreck where a car traveling down Interstate 20 in Warren County west of Augusta hit the end of a guardrail, which speared the vehicle and killed two people.

The breakaway cable terminal, or BCT, guardrail has been known to be a safety hazard for decades, and GDOT was under federal notice to replace them when it did other maintenance work, said Isenberg & Hewitt partner Mel Hewitt.