Missouri is on pace to surpass last year's highway death total, according to the Missouri Department of Transportation.
That's an about-face from the prior two years, when road fatalities trended downward.
MoDOT Deputy Director and Chief Engineer Eric Schroeter said Wednesday that so far this year, 745 people have died on Missouri highways, which is over two a day.
"That's unacceptable for Missouri and for everybody here that's lost family members, that's lost team members, that's lost workers," Schroeter said.
According to Schroeter, this time of year normally has an increase in road deaths, due to increased traffic during the holidays, more nighttime driving hours because of daylight saving time and other factors.
He urges Missouri drivers to buckle their seatbelt and not use devices like phones to prevent distracted driving.
While 2025 marked the first full calendar year that Interstate 70 has been under construction to add lanes, Schroeter said that project alone is not a reason for the increase.
"It hasn't had a significant [effect], on these numbers, per se, but we are aware we're going to be working on I-70 for next five years," Schroeter said.
That includes the stretch of highway between Wentzville and Warrenton, where a fatal crash occurred earlier this month and which has been the scene of several other fatalities.
"We've made changes to those work zones. We've tried to widen out the lanes a little bit. We've adjusted the speed limit, and speed limits going up and down, but our key factors we're still seeing is inattention coming in and speeds being higher than they should be," Schroeter said.
There are over 950 active work zones across the state. Schroeter said the department is seeing numerous instances in which drivers are not obeying the speed limit in work zones.
Scott White, with the Missouri Highway Patrol, said in September, the agency launched the Strategic Traffic Operations and Rapid Mobilization team, with one of the main goals being targeting dangerous driving.
He said the I-70 construction and other work zones in the state were a reason for developing this team.
"There's 23 officers throughout the state that are assigned there, but that also includes not only just the road officers … and then our aircraft," White said. "So what we try to enforce as best we can, especially during those busy times, is the speed limits and people making sure that they're paying attention."
White said that in the month this team has been operating, officers have made over 1,200 traffic stops and issued around 850 citations. He said those tickets have included speeding, tailgating and other aggressive driving behavior.
"Importantly, the assigned officers have been quickly deployed to developing situations such as work zone concerns," White said.
MoDOT also blames distracted driving for crashes and fatalities. Schroeter said in 2023 and 2024, over 100 road fatalities were due to distracted driving, with that number likely being underreported.
In 2023, Missouri lawmakers passed legislation that added additional penalties for texting while driving. It became enforceable at the beginning of this year.
According to White, troopers across the state have issued over 1,300 tickets for violations of this new law.
"We will continue to aggressively enforce provisions of this law, because distracted and inattentive driving continues to be a major contributing circumstance to many of the crashes that we investigate," White said.
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