A 30-year-old St. Louis mother of two has been identified as the woman killed in a two-vehicle crash at the intersection of Vandeventer and McPherson avenues in the Central West End. Tia Pate was driving a black Hyundai Santa Fe south on Vandeventer when it collided with a black Dodge Durango headed west on McPherson, and she was ejected from her vehicle in the impact.
According to FOX 2, a St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department spokesperson said the crash happened around 11:40 p.m. Everyone involved, including the Durango's driver and passenger, was taken to the hospital, though the two in the Durango were treated and later recovered. Pate did not survive. FOX 2 reporter Kevin S. Held reported that investigators have released her name but that the crash remains under investigation, with no determination yet on which vehicle had the right of way at the signal.
That uncertainty over the traffic signal was echoed in earlier reporting on the crash. Per Holland Injury Law, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department's Accident Reconstruction Unit was deployed to the scene, and it was initially unclear which driver ran the electric traffic signal at Vandeventer and McPherson. That question remains unresolved.
First Responders Worked to Save Her at the Scene
Emergency crews performed CPR on Pate at the scene before rushing her to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead, according to a VOP News STL report on the collision near Lindell Boulevard. The crash was one of two deadly traffic incidents in St. Louis that same Saturday night in early January, coming hours after a fatal pedestrian crash near North Florissant Avenue and Hebert Street reported shortly after 7 p.m., as detailed by KSDK.
An obituary published by Gateway Cremation Center describes Pate as a mother of two young children and a 2013 graduate of Webster Groves High School who worked as a dental assistant at STL Family Dentistry. She was born in St. Louis in May 1995 and had planned to pursue further education to become a dental hygienist, the obituary states.
Ejection Risk and a Citywide Push for Safer Streets
Pate's ejection from her vehicle reflects a pattern that shows up in statewide crash data. Preliminary Missouri Department of Transportation figures for 2025 found that 57 percent of vehicle occupants killed in crashes on Missouri roads were not wearing a seat belt, and research compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration indicates seat belt use can cut ejection rates by up to half, particularly in side-impact and rollover collisions.
Missouri's overall traffic fatalities fell 4.81 percent in 2025 to 909 deaths, down from 955 the year before, marking three straight years of decline statewide, per the Missouri Department of Transportation. Still, the crash landed in one of St. Louis's busiest commercial corridors: the Central West End draws more than 4.6 million visitors annually, according to figures from Park Central Development cited in Hoodline's coverage of the neighborhood.
The city has been working to address traffic violence on corridors like this one. In November 2025, the St. Louis Planning Commission adopted its first comprehensive Transportation and Mobility Plan since 1948, shaped over 18 months with input from roughly 4,000 residents, according to ThatCarHitMe.com. Regionally, the East-West Gateway Council of Governments, the metropolitan planning organization spanning eight counties across Missouri and Illinois, has set a target of cutting traffic fatalities in half by 2050.
This is not the first serious crash to strike the Central West End in recent months. Hoodline previously reported on a construction worker left in critical condition after being struck by a car in the neighborhood. The investigation into Pate's death remains ongoing, and police have not yet said which driver had the green light at Vandeventer and McPherson.
