This guide has said it before: the bridge is not the hard part, the 12 to 2 close is. Every Missouri Injury Clinic office closes from noon to 2 every day, Hazelwood and Tesson Ferry are open only in the morning on Fridays, and the O'Fallon, Missouri office sees patients on Wednesdays and Fridays by appointment. A reader coming from Illinois has a river, an interstate merge, and a hard midday wall between home and the exam. Most days the crossing is ordinary. This page is for the day it is not.
What slows a crossing
East bank readers already know the list. A crash or a stalled vehicle on one of the bridges. Lane closures for construction. Heavy rain. A Cardinals home game or a big event downtown, close to where the Poplar Street lands. The morning rush where 55/70 and I-64 feed the river. None of that is predictable enough to schedule around perfectly, and this guide does not publish drive times it cannot stand behind. What you can do is plan for a bad day before you have one.
Before the day of the appointment
Book with margin on both sides
A first visit booked for 11:30 has no margin at all; if the crossing runs long, you arrive into the lunch close. A 9:30 or 10 o'clock appointment, or the first opening after 2, leaves space for a slow bridge without running into the wall. On a Friday only the morning exists at Hazelwood and Tesson Ferry, so treat an 11 o'clock Friday slot as tight.
Know your second bridge
Every reader has a bridge they trust. Learn the alternate before you need it. This guide's bridge by bridge page lays out where each crossing lands; here is the short version.
| If your usual crossing is | A reasonable alternate | Office it still points at |
|---|---|---|
| I-270, Chain of Rocks | I-70, Stan Musial, then north | Hazelwood |
| I-70, Stan Musial | I-270, Chain of Rocks, by way of I-55 north | Hazelwood |
| I-64 or I-55, Poplar Street | I-255, Jefferson Barracks | Tesson Ferry |
| I-255, Jefferson Barracks | I-55, Poplar Street, then south | Tesson Ferry |
Confirm the final turns with your maps app. This guide does not publish street-level directions.
Save the office number in your phone
Put the number of the office you booked into your contacts before the day: Hazelwood (314) 627-1411, Tesson Ferry (314) 530-5480, O'Fallon, Missouri (636) 280-0990. Hunting for it on a shoulder is how appointments get missed.
On the day, if it goes wrong
Check before you leave
Look at a traffic map before you pull out of the driveway, not once you are on the ramp. If your usual bridge is backed up, take the alternate from the start.
Call early, and not from behind the wheel
If you can see you will be late, have a passenger call, or pull off somewhere safe and call yourself. Tell the office when you expect to arrive and ask whether they can still see you or would rather move the visit. Calling at 10:15 about a 10:30 appointment gives them options. Walking in at 11:50 gives them none.
Do not race the wall
A driver with a stiff neck, weaving through a merge to beat a noon close, is exactly the driver this guide does not want on the road. If the timing does not work, take the first opening after 2 or another day this week. A rescheduled exam this week is still an exam this week. A second crash is not a trade worth making.
If the backup is a new crash
If you come upon a collision, or you are in one, the plan changes. 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. Call 911 from whichever bank you are on.
Why it is worth the trouble
Readers sometimes let one bad crossing turn into two weeks without an exam. That is the real cost of a bad traffic day. Crash injuries tend to announce themselves over the first few days, and a dated exam early in that stretch gives everyone a starting point. This guide's week after page walks that timeline. A late bridge is a reason to reschedule, not a reason to wait.
Where you are headed
Missouri Injury Clinic has no Illinois location. Its three offices are Hazelwood, at 14 Village Square Shop Ctr; Tesson Ferry, at 11144 Tesson Ferry Road, Suite 200; and O'Fallon, Missouri, at 2163 West Terra Lane. The clinic says it reserves same-day appointment times daily for car accident injuries, so a missed morning is worth a call about the afternoon.