Key takeaways
- October had the most Missouri crashes in 2023 (12,721); February the fewest (9,450), partly because it is short.
- December through February held 23.2 percent of the year's crashes, less than a quarter.
- Fatal crashes peaked in September (107) and were lowest in January (40).
- The table is statewide, one year, and has no weather or injury-crash columns.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol's table 1.14 counts the state's 2023 crashes by the month they happened. It is statewide, and it carries two columns, all crashes and fatal crashes; injury crashes by month are not in this table. What it shows runs against a common assumption on this desk and others: the busiest month for crashes in Missouri in 2023 was not in the dead of winter.
The busiest months
October led the year with 12,721 crashes, 9.3 percent of the 136,839 total. May was next with 12,340, then November with 11,988. February had the fewest, 9,450, or 6.9 percent.
February is short
Months are not the same length, and February 2023 had 28 days. Dividing each month's count by its days gives crashes per day, which is the Wire's arithmetic, not the Patrol's. By that measure February averaged 337.5 crashes a day and January 345.5, the two lowest, while October averaged 410.4, the highest, followed by November at 399.6 and May at 398.1. The short month explains part of February's low count. It does not explain the fall peak.
Winter was not the peak
December, January, and February together recorded 31,810 crashes in the table, 23.2 percent of the year, in three months that make up a quarter of it. The last three months of the year, October through December, recorded 36,359, 26.6 percent, the most of any quarter. The first quarter, January through March, recorded 30,997, 22.7 percent, the least.
That does not make ice harmless. One year of statewide counts cannot show what a single ice storm does to one signal on Manchester Road on one morning, and the table does not record weather at all. It does mean the Wire will not tell a reader that winter is when crashes happen. In 2023, in Missouri, fall was.
| Month | All crashes | Share | Crashes per day | Fatal crashes | Fatal per 1,000 crashes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 10,710 | 7.8% | 345.5 | 40 | 3.7 |
| February | 9,450 | 6.9% | 337.5 | 56 | 5.9 |
| March | 10,837 | 7.9% | 349.6 | 57 | 5.3 |
| April | 10,965 | 8.0% | 365.5 | 76 | 6.9 |
| May | 12,340 | 9.0% | 398.1 | 92 | 7.5 |
| June | 11,639 | 8.5% | 388.0 | 65 | 5.6 |
| July | 11,187 | 8.2% | 360.9 | 95 | 8.5 |
| August | 11,775 | 8.6% | 379.8 | 90 | 7.6 |
| September | 11,577 | 8.5% | 385.9 | 107 | 9.2 |
| October | 12,721 | 9.3% | 410.4 | 81 | 6.4 |
| November | 11,988 | 8.8% | 399.6 | 76 | 6.3 |
| December | 11,650 | 8.5% | 375.8 | 70 | 6.0 |
| Total | 136,839 | 100.0% | 374.9 | 905 | 6.6 |
Fatal crashes keep their own calendar
September had the most fatal crashes, 107, followed by July with 95 and May with 92. January had the fewest, 40. Per 1,000 crashes, September ran 9.2 fatal crashes and January 3.7. Fatal counts this size move a lot from year to year, so the Wire reads them as lives lost in one year, not as a seasonal rule.
What this means for a West County reader
There is no off season. The quietest month in the table still averaged more than 337 crashes a day across Missouri. And the injury that matters to this desk does not care what month it is. The neck stiffens on day two in October the same way it does in January; the day two file is about that lag.
So the bulletin does not change with the calendar. After a real collision, get examined this week. The Tesson Ferry office is open Monday through Thursday 9 to 6 and Friday 9 to noon, closed daily from 12 to 2.
What the table cannot tell you
It is statewide, so it says nothing about West County in particular. It is one year. It carries no injury crashes by month, no weather, no traffic volume, and no roads. The Wire prints it because it is the Patrol's published count and because a sourced statewide number with the label on it is better than a local number nobody can check.
Sources
- Missouri State Highway Patrol, Missouri Traffic Safety Compendium 2023, table 1.14: 2023 Missouri Fatal and Total Crashes by Month of Occurrence.
- Missouri State Highway Patrol, Missouri Traffic Safety Compendium 2023, table 1.13: 2023 Missouri Crashes by County and Crash Severity.
Read the tables at the Missouri State Highway Patrol Traffic Safety Compendium on mshp.dps.missouri.gov. Tables pulled September 13, 2026. These are crashes reported into MOCARS, the statewide crash record system the compendium is built from. 2023 is the latest year the Patrol has published; its 2024 county table returned no rows on that date. Crashes per day divide each month's count by its days in 2023, which was not a leap year. Shares, sums, per-day, and per-1,000 figures are the Wire's arithmetic on the published counts, not numbers the Patrol printed.
Wire // One action
Any month, the same bulletin.
Call the Tesson Ferry office the morning after a crash, before the 12 to 2 close, say it is a crash exam, and take the first slot you can drive to.
The bright line. Chest pain, a sudden severe headache, weakness or numbness on one side, trouble speaking, a loss of bowel or bladder control, or a head injury with vomiting or worsening confusion is an emergency room trip right now, not a call to a clinic.
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