Key takeaways
- Failed to yield was listed on 8,285 Missouri injury crashes in 2023, more than any other named circumstance.
- Following too close was listed on 3,933 injury crashes and 22 fatal ones: rarely fatal, often injuring. 5,576 people were hurt.
- A crash can list more than one circumstance, so rows overlap and never add up to a total.
- The circumstance on a report describes how a crash started, not what it did to a body.
When an officer writes up a Missouri crash, the report can list what contributed to it: a driver who failed to yield, a driver following too close, speed, distraction, alcohol, and a long list of others. Table 1.27 of the Missouri State Highway Patrol's Traffic Safety Compendium adds those up for 2023. Two lines on it matter most to the Wire's corridor of signals and left turns: following too close, and failing to yield. The table is statewide. It cannot say where in Missouri any of these crashes happened.
Read this table with one rule in mind
A crash can carry more than one contributing circumstance, and the Patrol says plainly that crashes, persons killed, and persons injured may be counted more than once. The proof is in the totals. Table 1.27's total row counts 259,503 crashes and 68,532 personal injury crashes, but Missouri had 136,839 crashes and 34,820 injury crashes in 2023 by the Patrol's own county table. So the rows cannot be added together, and no row can be read as a share of the total row. What a row can do is describe itself: how many crashes listed that circumstance, and how many of those hurt someone.
Failing to yield
Failed to yield was listed on 25,644 Missouri crashes in 2023. 8,285 of them were personal injury crashes, more than any other named circumstance, and 153 were fatal. Those crashes injured 12,807 people and killed 165. Within that row, 32.3 percent of the crashes were injury crashes, a higher share than Missouri's crashes as a whole, where it was 25.4 percent.
On the Wire's beat, failing to yield is the left turn across oncoming traffic, the pull out of a shopping center entrance, and the stop sign that became a roll. The corridor file describes where that happens at Clayton and Clarkson. A side impact loads the body differently from a rear-end hit: the neck goes sideways and the struck side takes the door. That is the corridor reading, not something table 1.27 measures.
Following too close
Following too close was listed on 17,794 crashes, 3,933 of them injury crashes, the fourth most of any named circumstance. It was listed on 22 fatal crashes, the second fewest among the ten circumstances in the chart. Its crashes injured 5,576 people. Within the row, 22.1 percent of the crashes were injury crashes.
That is the profile of the slow rear-end hit at a signal, the Wire's local signature on Manchester Road: rarely fatal, often filed as property damage, and still an injury crash thousands of times a year. A low fatal count is not a low injury count. 5,576 people injured is the number that belongs next to it.
| Circumstance listed | Fatal | Injury crashes | Property damage only | Total | Killed | Injured |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Failed to yield | 153 | 8,285 | 17,206 | 25,644 | 165 | 12,807 |
| Too fast for conditions | 201 | 4,378 | 8,659 | 13,238 | 222 | 6,367 |
| Distracted or inattentive | 110 | 4,244 | 11,516 | 15,870 | 117 | 6,232 |
| Following too close | 22 | 3,933 | 13,839 | 17,794 | 24 | 5,576 |
| Improper lane use or change | 208 | 3,889 | 13,862 | 17,959 | 231 | 5,558 |
| Signal or sign violation | 62 | 2,753 | 3,421 | 6,236 | 76 | 4,643 |
| Alcohol | 135 | 2,039 | 2,956 | 5,130 | 148 | 2,873 |
| Exceeded the speed limit | 150 | 1,680 | 1,941 | 3,771 | 180 | 2,781 |
| Overcorrected | 85 | 1,166 | 1,822 | 3,073 | 97 | 1,614 |
| Improper turn | 18 | 1,071 | 4,034 | 5,123 | 19 | 1,603 |
| None listed | 425 | 22,453 | 67,894 | 90,772 | 488 | 34,335 |
| Unknown | 107 | 4,769 | 17,646 | 22,522 | 108 | 6,619 |
| Table total, with overlaps | 2,050 | 68,532 | 188,921 | 259,503 | 2,309 | 102,175 |
The rows nobody likes
The biggest row in the table is not a circumstance at all. 90,772 crashes listed none, 22,453 of them injury crashes, and another 22,522 were marked unknown. A crash report with no contributing circumstance is still a crash, and the people in it are still counted in the injured column. It is a reminder that the circumstance line is an officer's coding at the scene, done with what could be seen.
For the person who was hurt
Whatever the report says contributed, and whichever car you were in, the report is not an exam. It does not describe your neck, your back, or your head, and it was written before anyone checked them. Following too close and failing to yield are lines of wire copy about how a crash started. What it did to a body is a separate question, and the answer is written by a clinician.
So the bulletin is the same as every other file on the Wire. Get examined this week, at an office you can reach. The Tesson Ferry office is open Monday through Thursday 9 to 6 and Friday 9 to noon, closed daily from 12 to 2.
Sources
- Missouri State Highway Patrol, Missouri Traffic Safety Compendium 2023, table 1.27: 2023 Missouri Crashes by Contributing Circumstances, 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. Table 1.27 carries the Patrol's own note: because crashes may involve more than one type of contributing circumstance, crashes, persons killed, and persons injured may be counted more than once. 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
However it started, the exam is the next line.
Rear-ended at a signal or hit by a left turn? Call the Tesson Ferry office, 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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