Following too close was listed on 3,933 injury crashes. Read the footnote first.

Start with the footnote, because the Patrol put it there for a reason. Table 1.27 lists the contributing circumstances written on crash reports: failed to yield, following too close, distracted or inattentive, too fast for conditions, and about thirty more. A single crash can carry several of them. When it does, it is counted on every line it carries, so the lines in this table overlap and cannot be added up into a number of crashes.

What the footnote does to the totals

You can see the overlap in the arithmetic. The personal injury column of table 1.27 adds up to 68,532. Table 1.05, which counts each crash once, says Missouri had 34,820 personal injury crashes in 2023, the latest year the Patrol has published. The difference is crashes being counted under more than one circumstance, plus the lines labelled None and Unknown. So this page does not print a percentage of injury crashes for any circumstance. It prints the count on each line, and the only percentages are within a single line.

Chart injury crashes by contributing circumstance, Missouri 2023

The ten named circumstances listed on the most personal injury crashes. A crash with two circumstances appears in two bars. The lines labelled None, Unknown and Other are left out of the chart and shown in the table.

Failed to yield8,285

Too fast for conditions4,378

Distracted or inattentive4,244

Following too close3,933

Improper lane use or change3,889

Signal or sign violation2,753

Alcohol2,039

Exceeded speed limit1,680

Overcorrected1,166

Improper turn1,071

Following too close, read on its own line

Following too close was listed on 3,933 personal injury crashes, 13,839 property damage only crashes, and 22 fatal crashes, 17,794 in all. 22.1% of the crashes on that line were injury crashes. Very few were fatal. Compare too fast for conditions: 201 fatal crashes out of 13,238.

The plain-language picture of following too close is a driver who could not stop before reaching the vehicle in front. That is the rear-end hit this guide describes on its other pages: a car that is stopped or slowing, struck from behind, often at a speed that leaves both drivers standing on the shoulder saying they are fine. The table does not record the direction of impact, and it does not record necks. The connection is the desk's reading of what the circumstance means, not a finding in the table.

Failed to yield and distracted

Failed to yield is the largest named circumstance for injury crashes, 8,285, with 12,807 persons injured on that line. In plain terms it is the turn across traffic or the pull-out from a side street, which more often means an impact from the side. Distracted or inattentive driving was listed on 4,244 injury crashes with 6,232 persons injured. A distracted driver can be the one following too close, which is exactly the kind of crash the footnote warns will show up on both lines.

The two largest lines in the whole table are not causes at all. None was listed on 22,453 injury crashes and Unknown on 4,769. The compendium does not break those lines down on this table, and this page does not guess what is inside them.

Missouri State Highway Patrol, Traffic Safety Compendium 2023, table 1.27, ten largest named circumstances by personal injury crashes, plus None, Unknown and Other. The Patrol's footnote: because crashes may involve more than one contributing circumstance, crashes, persons killed and persons injured may be counted more than once. Injury share of line is injury crashes divided by all crashes on the same line, computed by this desk.

What it means for a sore neck

None of these circumstances is a diagnosis, and none decides whether you were hurt. Their use to a reader is narrower. They describe how the crash happened, and how it happened is the first thing an exam asks about. Hit from behind while stopped, hit from the side while turning, hit while your head was turned toward a passenger: each loads the neck differently, which is why the bumper barely moving says so little.

Before the first visit, write down what you remember in a few lines: where you were, which way the other vehicle came from, whether you saw it, and where your hands and head were. That history belongs in the dated record. It is more useful to your care than any line on a state table.

Chest pain, a sudden severe headache, weakness or numbness on one side, trouble speaking, a loss of bowel or bladder control, or a head injury with vomiting or worsening confusion is an emergency room trip right now, not a call to a clinic.