Missouri highway crews are watching drivers plow into their protection trucks at an alarming rate, and the receipts are now on video. State transportation officials this week released clips of multiple vehicles smashing into truck-mounted attenuators, the big cushion-like rigs that sit behind work crews to absorb impact, and warned that crashes into those rolling shields have jumped in recent years.
According to the Missouri Department of Transportation, the agency owns more than 600 truck- or trailer-mounted attenuators across the state. MoDOT logged nine crashes involving those protective vehicles in the fourth quarter of 2025. The agency only records a TMA hit when the unit is actively shielding workers, and each incident is reviewed by work-zone teams to adjust operations and try to cut future risk. The outcomes range from minor dents to total equipment loss, with occasional injuries to employees.
Year-to-year jump
Industry partners say the trend line is going the wrong way. Protective vehicles were hit 50 times while guarding crews in 2025, up from 34 in 2024, even as MoDOT gears up for another heavy construction season. The rising TMA hits come on top of more traditional work-zone carnage: 24 people were killed in Missouri work-zone crashes last year and more than 110 others were seriously injured.
As outlined by the AGC of Missouri, MoDOT typically has more than 1,000 active work zones statewide on any given day, from quick shoulder repairs to major highway overhauls. That means odds are good most Missouri drivers are passing some kind of orange-cone gauntlet on a regular basis.
Video and local impact
Local station First Alert 4 aired the crash footage and reported that MoDOT's compilation covers incidents from June 2024 through November 2025. The station also noted that in just the first part of 2026, TMA trucks across Missouri have already been hit 21 times, including six crashes in the St. Louis metro alone.
In the report, MoDOT staffer Michelle Forneris explained that the TMA "is to take the brunt of the impact and act as a cushion to slow the impact down." Officials told First Alert 4 they believe most of the crashes come down to drivers who are distracted or moving too fast through work zones, despite all the flashing lights and warning signs.
What is being done and what drivers can do
Each TMA hit is more than a close call. MoDOT says a new protective unit typically runs between $50,000 and $80,000, and that does not include the cost of taking a truck out of service or any medical bills if a worker is hurt. The department has been steadily adding more TMAs to its fleet since 2021 in an effort to keep crews from being struck directly. Officials stress that the trucks are meant to be a last line of defense, not an invitation for drivers to treat work zones like bumper cars.
According to MoDOT, the simplest things motorists can do to help are also the most obvious: slow down in work zones, move over when it is safe to give crews extra space, and put the phone away behind the wheel.
The push for better protection has a painful backstory. Survivors and families have been calling for stronger safeguards since the November 2021 crash that killed MoDOT workers Kaitlyn Anderson and James Brooks, a tragedy First Alert 4 has previously documented. Anderson's mother, Tonya Musskopf, has told reporters she has noticed more TMAs on state roads and hopes that extra layer of protection prevents future deaths.
Those local voices, advocates say, helped nudge agencies to invest in more protective vehicles even as officials repeat the same bottom-line message. No amount of steel and cushioning can fully protect workers if the drivers coming at them are speeding, distracted, or impaired.
