Key takeaways
- Chesterfield recorded the most crashes inside its limits in 2023 (1,054); Ellisville the fewest of the thirteen (326).
- The injury share ran from 12.6 percent in Kirkwood to 31.4 percent in Town and Country.
- The four Manchester Road cities add to 1,595 crashes and 442 people injured.
- City rows exclude unincorporated West County, and a count is not a safety grade.
Table 17.01 of the Missouri State Highway Patrol's Traffic Safety Compendium counts the crashes that happened inside each Missouri city's limits in 2023, sorted by severity, along with the people killed and injured. This file pulls the thirteen West County rows and lays them out three ways: by all crashes, by people injured, and by the share of crashes that were injury crashes.
Reading the chart
Chesterfield had the most crashes inside its limits, 1,054, with 278 injury crashes and 390 people injured. Creve Coeur (976) and Maryland Heights (968) were close behind; those three are the only rows over 900. Ellisville had the fewest of the thirteen, 326. Together the thirteen add to 8,151 crashes and 1,808 injury crashes.
Ordering cities by a count is fair. Reading the order as a safety grade is not. The table carries no population, road miles, or traffic, and a city with a big commercial strip or an interstate inside its limits will collect crashes from drivers who live nowhere near it.
How many were injury crashes
The share of crashes that were personal injury crashes varies more than the counts suggest. In Town and Country, 31.4 percent of crashes inside city limits were injury crashes. In Kirkwood, it was 12.6 percent. Across all thirteen it was 22.2 percent, and across Missouri 25.4 percent. The table does not say why a crash in one city was more likely to be filed as an injury crash than a crash in another, and the Wire will not guess. On counts this size, a few dozen crashes move the share by points.
| City | Fatal | Injury crashes | Property damage only | Total | Killed | Injured | Injury share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chesterfield | 1 | 278 | 775 | 1,054 | 1 | 390 | 26.4% |
| Creve Coeur | 2 | 255 | 719 | 976 | 2 | 374 | 26.1% |
| Maryland Heights | 6 | 218 | 744 | 968 | 6 | 289 | 22.5% |
| Kirkwood | 1 | 99 | 683 | 783 | 1 | 124 | 12.6% |
| Sunset Hills | 1 | 167 | 582 | 750 | 1 | 241 | 22.3% |
| Town and Country | 1 | 210 | 457 | 668 | 1 | 298 | 31.4% |
| Fenton | 3 | 95 | 425 | 523 | 4 | 129 | 18.2% |
| Des Peres | 0 | 100 | 384 | 484 | 0 | 123 | 20.7% |
| Wildwood | 0 | 74 | 385 | 459 | 0 | 98 | 16.1% |
| Manchester | 0 | 95 | 328 | 423 | 0 | 121 | 22.5% |
| Webster Groves | 1 | 78 | 296 | 375 | 1 | 101 | 20.8% |
| Ballwin | 0 | 86 | 276 | 362 | 0 | 121 | 23.8% |
| Ellisville | 1 | 53 | 272 | 326 | 1 | 77 | 16.3% |
| All 13 | 17 | 1,808 | 6,326 | 8,151 | 18 | 2,486 | 22.2% |
People injured
A crash count understates the number of people who were hurt, because one injury crash can injure a driver alone or a whole car. Across the thirteen cities, 2,486 people were injured in 1,808 injury crashes, 1.38 people per injury crash. It ran from 1.23 in Des Peres to 1.47 in Creve Coeur.
The Manchester Road cities
Des Peres, Manchester, Ballwin, and Ellisville share the Wire's home corridor, Manchester Road. Their four rows add to 1,595 crashes, 334 injury crashes, and 442 people injured in 2023. The table does not break a city's crashes down by road, so it cannot say how many happened on Manchester itself. The corridor file is the Wire's reading of that road, and it is labelled as a reading, not a count.
Fatal crashes
The thirteen rows record 17 fatal crashes and 18 people killed. Maryland Heights had the most, 6. 4 of the thirteen recorded none: Des Peres, Wildwood, Manchester, Ballwin. Each of those numbers is a person, and on counts this small the Wire lists them without drawing a line through them.
Smaller cities on the same roads
A few smaller West County municipalities have rows too. They are listed here for readers who live in them, not added into the thirteen-city totals above.
| City | Fatal | Injury crashes | Property damage only | Total | Killed | Injured | Injury share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eureka | 1 | 56 | 257 | 314 | 1 | 76 | 17.8% |
| Valley Park | 1 | 60 | 251 | 312 | 1 | 75 | 19.2% |
| Twin Oaks | 0 | 11 | 52 | 63 | 0 | 16 | 17.5% |
| Clarkson Valley | 0 | 8 | 20 | 28 | 0 | 11 | 28.6% |
| Winchester | 0 | 1 | 14 | 15 | 0 | 1 | 6.7% |
What is not on this file
Crashes in unincorporated West County, which sits inside no city's limits. Crashes by road. Anything per resident. And anything about a clinic: Missouri Injury Clinic did not supply these numbers, and they say nothing about it.
If you were hurt in one of these cities
Then you are one line in one row, and the row cannot tell you what your neck or back is doing. Get examined this week. The near office for most of West County is Tesson Ferry, 11144 Tesson Ferry Road, Suite 200, open Monday through Thursday 9 to 6 and Friday 9 to noon, closed 12 to 2. The offices file has all three.
Sources
- Missouri State Highway Patrol, Missouri Traffic Safety Compendium 2023, table 17.01: 2023 Missouri Crashes by Municipality, Crash Severity, and Personal Injury Severity.
- 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. The thirteen-city list is the Wire's selection of West County municipalities; each row is printed as published. 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
Whichever city limit it was inside, get examined this week.
Call the Tesson Ferry office, say it is a crash exam, and take the first morning or afternoon 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.
Advertising disclosureThis page is advertising. This desk is compensated for featuring Missouri Injury Clinic, and it is not the clinic, not a law office, and not a party to anyone's insurance claim. We publish only the lanes, offices, and hours the clinic publishes on moinjuryclinic.com. We do not write reviews, rank providers, or give medical or legal advice. Everything on this desk is educational. It is not medical advice, not a diagnosis, and not a substitute for an exam by a licensed clinician.