Concrete guardrails installed on Malibu Canyon Road after teen's death
LA County added barriers on the canyon road where 17-year-old Hunter Langley plunged to his death last winter, after his mother's persistent advocacy.
By Hans Laetz
LA County road crews have placed concrete rails along Malibu Canyon Road, where a 17-year-old Malibu boy plunged down a cliff last winter.
Hunter Langley was driving to high school in the Valley last February. He was driving a Tesla when the vehicle "made a sharp turning movement to the right and veered off the roadway," the CHP said.
The car went airborne and tumbled about 30 feet down Malibu Canyon, just north of the city limits.
Since then, Carla Langley has been at public meeting after public meeting, with a portrait of her son and a plea for guardrails.
Haylynn Conrad told KBUU it took Hunter's death and his mother's relentless advocacy to get the rails installed.
"I believe it took Hunter Langley's death to be honest with you, and the grace and elegance of Carla, his mother, who came to a dozen or more meetings with his poster in her family, demanding change really," Conrad said.
"And the county — I want to give them credit, we all worked on this. Unfortunately, it was oddly harder than it needed to be. I think they saw the error of their ways and they put up the guardrails at the place where Hunter Langley died, and I think they're going to do them in the rest of Malibu Canyon."
Conrad says the boy's mom just would not give up, as transportation officials at LA County at first refused to even consider the concrete guardrail.
"They first said that they didn't have the funding, and then I went to a county transportation commission meeting. I don't want to take all the credit — I know Carla Langley was there and made an impact. It was just relentless pushing," Conrad said.