Missouri transportation officials and the Missouri State Highway Patrol say while we’ve seen three straight years of declining roadway fatalities, at least 716 motorists have been killed on Missouri roads in 2026.
Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) state highway safety and traffic engineer Jon Nelson tells reporters that 88 percent of Missourians wear their seat belts:
“That 12 percent that don’t buckle up … they’re accounting for almost 60 percent of the vehicle occupant fatalities,” Mr. Nelson says.
Mr. Nelson, MoDOT director Ed Hassinger and others spoke at Wednesday’s press conference at Columbia’s Drury Inn near I-70 and Highway 63 to recognize the 10th annual buckle up phone down day.
Meantime, Missouri’s Improve I-70 director says the approximately 250 construction workers in the I-70 work zones between Kingdom City and Boonville are urging you to slow down on I-70. Improve I-70 program director Eric Kopinski addressed reporters at the Columbia press conference:
“Without question, every worker says we need the traveling public to slow down in the work zone. That’s all we need,” he says.
Some drivers have also been texting in I-70 work zones. Missouri State Highway Patrol Captain Eric Brown tells 939 the Eagle that it’s difficult to do enforcement in many of the work zones because they’re narrow. The Patrol has used their airplane for some enforcement on I-70.