Ed Benzel remembers hearing the loud thud of a minivan sailing off the road near his home into a deep ravine. He said rescue crews tied the van to a utility pole to keep it from sliding further down.

"There was an 8-year-old girl that had to be pulled out, and her mother had to be cut out," Benzel said.

That crash was in February on Highway 75, right at the state line where Union County meets Lancaster County.

"They need a guard rail in there. I'd hate to see someone killed or hurt again," he said.

On Sunday, a pickup truck was the latest vehicle to fly off the curvy, two-lane road into the trench, more than 20 feet deep at its base.   Looking at the roadside, you can see the wide, trampled path where vehicles have left the road and slammed into the ditch, snapping tree trunks and uprooting bushes.

Driving into South Carolina, the road has a sharp turn on a hill.  Benzel said drivers often speed through there and careen off the highway.

"Everybody speeds coming over that hill, and they lose it right in the turn," he said.

Across the street, Randy Wynn runs a saw mill business. 

"You hear brakes and you hear squealing tires,” he said.

Wynn has seen the aftermath of several crashes, and has helped people get out to safety.

"You go pull 'em out and they're completely delirious.  They don't even know what happened," Wynn said.

Benzel has written and called the Department of Transportation in South Carolina about the stretch of Highway 75.

A DOT spokesman told Channel 9 Monday that the agency has approved 200 feet of guardrail for that section of Highway 75.  After a study of the road's crash history, it was determined there was a need for improved safety measures.

The project could start as soon as next week.

Benzel admitted that the drivers he sees near his home often appear to be driving far above the 55 mile an hour speed limit. 

"I'd hate to see someone die out there.  It just breaks your heart to see something like that," he said.