Two people are dead after a wrong-way driver slammed head-on into another vehicle on westbound Interstate 64 in Frontenac, setting off a three-vehicle pileup that shut down the highway for hours. The crash happened east of North Ballas Road shortly after 9:30 p.m. Wednesday.
According to FOX 2, citing the Missouri State Highway Patrol, a Nissan Altima was traveling the wrong way on westbound I-64 when it collided head-on with a Hyundai Genesis. That impact pushed the Hyundai into the path of a Toyota FJ Cruiser, which struck the back end of the Genesis. Reporting on the crash conflicts on the Nissan driver's gender: FOX 2's report, attributing the information to the patrol, identifies the driver as a 25-year-old man from Marshall, Missouri, while First Alert 4 reported the wrong-way driver was a 25-year-old woman driving a midsize car.
The patrol told FOX 2 that the Hyundai driver was a 30-year-old man from St. Louis. Both the Nissan driver and the Hyundai driver were pronounced dead at the scene, the patrol said. First Alert 4's account of the crash sequence describes the wrong-way car crashing head-on into a 30-year-old man driving a luxury car, with a third car then rear-ending that vehicle — and reported that the third driver involved was uninjured.
Lanes Shut Down For Hours As Crews Cleared Scene
Road crews temporarily closed all westbound lanes of I-64 for several hours while they cleared the wreckage, First Alert 4 reported. The patrol told FOX 2 that no other crash participants sustained injuries beyond the two who died, and that all of the drivers involved were wearing seatbelts at the time of the crash.
Second Wrong-Way Crash At Same Stretch Fuels Safety Push
This is not the first time a wrong-way crash has turned deadly along this stretch of I-64. The road has drawn renewed safety advocacy after a separate wrong-way crash last year, when a driver entered the westbound lanes while traveling eastbound and collided head-on with a Ford Explorer near Jefferson Avenue, killing both drivers and critically injuring a passenger, according to FOX 2's earlier report on that crash.
Dawn Whalen, whose son Alex was killed in a wrong-way crash at that same location the previous year, has been pushing for stronger highway safety measures in response. She has pointed to signage, additional flashing lights at arrows, wrong-way detection technology and Flock cameras as potential fixes, the outlet reported.
A Missouri bill under consideration would direct the Missouri Department of Transportation to study different warning systems for wrong-way driving, according to KFVS12. If passed, the first detection system would be installed at westbound I-64 and Jefferson Avenue in St. Louis, with MoDOT required to begin installing the warning systems by March 1, 2027, if the bill is signed into law.
