The Tennessee Department of Transportation is under fire after billing a dead teenager $3,000 to replace a guardrail that killed her in a car crash.

Steven Eimers, of Loudon, Tenn., tells the Knoxville News Sentinel that he received the bill for his 17-year-old daughter, Hannah, four months after she died in a wreck. She was killed Nov. 1 when her car left I-75 near Niota and hit the end of the guardrail with the driver's door; the highway patrol said she died instantly when the rail impaled her in the head and chest.

The TDOT sent a bill, addressed to Hannah Eimers and dated Feb. 24, to seek reimbursement for the cost of labor and materials to reinstall 25 feet of guardrail where the crash occurred.

"It's obscene," Steven Eimers told The Washington Post. "They will kill you and then they will bill you. The bill was absolutely tasteless ... It's almost comical. It's like the most obscene comedy skit you can come up with."

According to the Post, Hannah was found at fault for the crash. She had been at a Halloween party the night before and stayed at a friend's house; the next morning, they were driving to school and slammed into the guardrail end terminal after Hannah tried to correct when the car went off the road, investigators said.

The other girl in the car suffered minor injuries.

Steven blames the "defective" and "dangerous" guardrail that had been removed from the TDOT's list of approved products a week earlier.

The Lindsay X-LITE was designed to crumple on high-speed impacts to reduce sudden impact forces, but the TDOT found on Oct. 25 potential issues with "the telescoping w-beam, slider assembly friction reduction systems... if impacted at higher speeds" than 62.2 miles per hour. The speed limit on I-75 is 70 mph, according to the Sentinel.

TDOT spokesman Mark Nagi told WHNT 19 that the bill was a processing error and the family won't have to pay for the guardrail. Another letter is being sent to the family, he said.

"TDOT greatly apologizes for this mistake. There is no excuse for the letter/bill that was sent, and we will take measures to make sure that this never happens again," Nagi said in a statement.

Eimers is convinced that the letter is a sign of incompetence at the TDOT, and worries other drivers' lives may be at risk.

The TDOT has decided to remove the faulty guardrail from all places where the speed limit is over 45 mph, according to the Post, but it's unclear when the project will be completed. There are currently 1,000 similar end pieces on Tennessee roadways, WVLT reported.

Eimers told the Post he's been invited to a state House hearing and expects to meet the governor, but hopes to get federal oversight.

"If my daughter lived in Virginia and this happened, she'd still be alive," he said.