St. Louis County, Missouri: Wrong-Way Crash on I-64 Near Frontenac Kills Two Drivers

Two drivers were killed on Wednesday night, November 4, when a car traveling the wrong way on Interstate 64 in St. Louis County collided with two other vehicles near Ballas Road in the Frontenac area, the Missouri State Highway Patrol said.

The crash happened around 9:30 p.m. in the westbound lanes of I-64, KJLU Radio reported, citing the highway patrol. A 25 year old woman from Marshall was traveling in the wrong direction on the interstate when her car collided with a car, the patrol said. Her car then continued forward into the path of an SUV, and the SUV struck the back of her car.

The Marshall woman was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the first car she hit, a 30 year old man from St. Louis, was also pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the SUV, a 22 year old man from St. Charles, was not injured.

What officials have confirmed

KMOV reported that two people died in the wrong way crash, which involved three vehicles on westbound I-64 in Frontenac on Wednesday night. KSDK reported that the crash killed two people and closed the highway for hours, and that it was reported shortly after 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday evening.

The highway patrol account reported on Thursday gives the sequence of the three collisions, the ages and home towns of the three drivers, and the outcome for each driver. The reports did not release the names of any of the drivers. The reports also did not say how the Marshall woman's car came to be traveling in the wrong direction on the interstate, and they gave no cause for the crash.

For drivers in St. Louis County, the practical fact on Wednesday night was the closure itself: a fatal crash investigation shut the westbound side of one of the county's main east west highways for hours around the Ballas Road interchange, in a stretch that carries Frontenac, Town and Country and west county traffic.

What is not yet known

As of the reports published on Thursday, November 5, the names of the two drivers who died had not been released, no hospital information applied because both were pronounced dead at the scene and the third driver was not injured, and no further patrol findings had been reported. The patrol has not, in the reports, stated whether speed, impairment or a medical event played any part, and no such claim is made here.

Wrong way crashes on divided highways are uncommon but are often fatal because both vehicles are usually traveling at highway speed when they meet. On Wednesday night on I-64, that pattern held: the two drivers who met head on did not survive, and the third driver, struck from behind in the sequence that followed, walked away uninjured, according to the patrol account.