A 50-year-old Warrensburg woman and a 38-year-old Warrensburg man were seriously injured Thursday afternoon when the pickup she was driving left the highway and flipped over along U.S. 50 in Johnson County. The crash happened just before 3 p.m. as the truck traveled east before running off the roadway and rolling.
According to the KMMO report, the Missouri State Highway Patrol responded to the crash along U.S. Route 50 just east of Devasher Road, where the pickup entered the median and overturned. The driver and her passenger both suffered serious injuries in the wreck, the outlet reported. A separate account from KCTV5, citing the highway patrol, identified the vehicle as a 2004 Toyota Tundra that traveled off the left side of eastbound U.S. 50 before overturning.
The driver was taken by ambulance to Western Missouri Medical Center in Warrensburg, per the same account from the patrol. Her passenger, the 38-year-old man riding in the pickup, was airlifted to Research Medical Center in Kansas City. Troopers said the passenger was not wearing a seat belt at the time of the crash, the station reported.
A Stretch of Highway MoDOT Has Flagged for Safety Work
Thursday's rollover adds to a string of serious wrecks along U.S. 50 in Johnson County this year. In April, a separate one-vehicle crash on the highway left two occupants with serious injuries after their vehicle left the roadway and struck a culvert, according to a report from KMMO. In July, a two-vehicle crash east of Northeast 501st Road injured five people after a 49-year-old Warrensburg man slowed to turn while a 19-year-old Holts Summit driver failed to stop in time and struck his vehicle from behind; all five were taken to Western Missouri Medical Center, the outlet reported. KSHB has also reported a fatal crash on the same highway, in which a 38-year-old Warrensburg man died after losing control of his vehicle.
The Missouri Department of Transportation has a project underway aimed at improving safety on a nearby stretch of U.S. 50 west of Warrensburg, running from 0.7 miles east of Missouri Highway 58 to Missouri Business Highway 50, according to MoDOT. The agency says the work is designed to improve safety through intersection modifications, including the addition of J-turns and the removal of median crossovers. MoDOT notes that traffic on that corridor between Route 58 and the Maguire interchange has grown fivefold since the highway was completed in the mid-1960s.
J-Turns Tied to Fewer Serious Crashes Statewide
MoDOT reports that at Missouri's J-turn locations statewide, total crashes have fallen 25%, fatal crashes have dropped 88%, and serious-injury crashes have declined 78%. MoDOT also reports that fatal crashes fell 88% and left-turn, right-angle crashes were eliminated. At the U.S. 50 and Route 58 intersection specifically, the agency reported 28 crashes between 2010 and 2014, followed by zero fatalities and very few minor crashes since J-turns were installed there in 2015. A similar pattern held at U.S. 50 and MO 131, where J-turns installed in 2017 have so far produced no fatalities or serious crashes, MoDOT says.
