What Is the Penalty for a Hit-and-Run in Massachusetts?

Massachusetts does not have one hit-and-run offence. It has three, and they sit in the same statute at very different weights. Under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 24(2)(a), leaving the scene after hitting another vehicle or property is punishable by a fine of not less than $20 nor more than $200, or imprisonment for not less than two weeks nor more than two years, or both. Under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 24(2)(a1/2)(1), leaving after knowingly colliding with or causing injury to a person, where nobody dies, is punishable by imprisonment for not less than six months nor more than two years and by a fine of not less than $500 nor more than $1,000, and the word there is “and”, not “or”. Under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 24(2)(a1/2)(2), where the injuries result in death, the range is state prison for not less than two and one-half years nor more than ten years and a fine of not less than $1,000 nor more than $5,000, or a jail or house of correction sentence of not less than one year nor more than two and one-half years with the same fine, and the statute forbids reducing that sentence below one year, suspending it, or allowing probation, parole or furlough until a year has actually been served. Separately from the criminal case, a person injured by a driver who fled is usually not left without a source of payment, because M.G.L. c. 175, sec. 113L requires every Massachusetts auto policy to carry uninsured motorist coverage and names “hit-and-run motor vehicles” in the statute itself. Every statute here is quoted from malegislature.gov. This is general information and not legal advice. Jim Glaser Law can be reached at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.

Three Offences, One Statute Section

Almost everything people get wrong about hit-and-run in Massachusetts comes from treating it as a single crime with a single penalty. The statute is built in tiers, and which tier applies turns on what the driver hit and what happened to the people involved, not on how far the driver went or how long it took to find them.

The tiers are:

1. Property or another vehicle only. M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 24(2)(a).
2. A person is injured, nobody dies. M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 24(2)(a1/2)(1).
3. The injuries result in death. M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 24(2)(a1/2)(2).

Every tier shares the same core conduct. The driver operated a motor vehicle, knowingly collided with or caused injury to something or someone, and went away without stopping and making known his name, residence and the registration number of the vehicle. That trio of disclosures is the actual legal duty. Stopping alone is not compliance. A driver who stops, looks, and drives off without giving a name has not satisfied the statute any more than one who never slowed.

Tier One: Hitting a Vehicle or Property

This is the tier that covers the classic parking lot case, the clipped mirror, the mailbox, the fence, and the parked car nobody was sitting in.

The paragraph is long, because the legislature packed several unrelated offences into one sentence, but the operative language for leaving the scene reads: “whoever without stopping and making known his name, residence and the register number of his motor vehicle goes away after knowingly colliding with or otherwise causing injury to any other vehicle or property”. The penalty attached to that clause is “a fine of not less than twenty dollars nor more than two hundred dollars or by imprisonment for not less than two weeks nor more than two years, or both”.

Two things about that range surprise people, in opposite directions.

The fine is small. Twenty to two hundred dollars is a figure that has not been revisited in a very long time, and it is far below what the damage in a typical parking lot collision costs to repair.

The custodial exposure is not small. Two weeks to two years is real, and the statute allows a court to impose both the fine and imprisonment. In practice most property-only cases do not end in a jail sentence, but the statutory ceiling is a genuine one, and it explains why this offence is treated far more seriously than a parking ticket by everyone in the courthouse.

Note the wording quirk if you go and read it yourself. This paragraph says “register number”. The two personal injury paragraphs say “registration number”. They are quoted exactly as each one reads, and nothing turns on the difference.

Tier Two: A Person Is Injured

Once a person is hurt, the statute changes character. M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 24(2)(a1/2)(1) reads in full:

“Whoever operates a motor vehicle upon any way or in any place to which the public has right of access, or upon any way or in any place to which members of the public shall have access as invitees or licensees, and without stopping and making known his name, residence and the registration number of his motor vehicle, goes away after knowingly colliding with or otherwise causing injury to any person not resulting in the death of any person, shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than six months nor more than two years and by a fine of not less than five hundred dollars nor more than one thousand dollars.”

Read the penalty clause carefully: “shall be punished by imprisonment… and by a fine”. Conjunctive. The property tier said “or… or both”, leaving a court free to fine and stop there. This tier is written as both.

Also read the location language, because it is broader than “road”. The duty attaches on any way or place to which the public has a right of access, and on any way or place to which the public has access as invitees or licensees. A supermarket parking lot, a mall access road, a hospital garage, an apartment complex lot: these are places the public reaches as invitees or licensees, and the statute reaches them. The instinct that a private lot is outside the rules is wrong, and it is the single most common way people talk themselves into driving off.

Answer Capsule

Massachusetts punishes leaving the scene in three tiers under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 24. Leaving after colliding with another vehicle or property, under sec. 24(2)(a), carries a fine of not less than $20 nor more than $200, or imprisonment of not less than two weeks nor more than two years, or both. Leaving after knowingly colliding with or causing injury to a person, where nobody dies, under sec. 24(2)(a1/2)(1), carries imprisonment of not less than six months nor more than two years and a fine of not less than $500 nor more than $1,000, both rather than either. Where the injuries result in death, sec. 24(2)(a1/2)(2) carries state prison of not less than two and one-half years nor more than ten years and a fine of not less than $1,000 nor more than $5,000, or a jail or house of correction term of not less than one year nor more than two and one-half years with the same fine, and that sentence may not be reduced below one year, may not be suspended, and carries no eligibility for probation, parole or furlough until one year has been served. The death tier contains an element the injury tier does not: the driver must have gone away “to avoid prosecution or evade apprehension”. The legal duty in every tier is to stop and make known name, residence and registration number, and the duty applies not only on public ways but in any place the public reaches as invitees or licensees, which includes ordinary parking lots. Separately, M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 26 requires a written report to the registrar within five days of any crash involving death, injury, or more than $1,000 in damage to any one vehicle or property, and it directs police to accept a report from an owner or operator whose vehicle was damaged by someone who unlawfully left the scene. On the civil side, M.G.L. c. 175, sec. 113L requires uninsured motorist coverage on every Massachusetts policy and expressly names hit-and-run vehicles, and M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34A sets compulsory liability limits of at least $20,000 per person and $40,000 per accident and personal injury protection of at least $8,000 payable without regard to fault. This is general information and not legal advice. Call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.

Tier Three: The Injuries Result in Death

M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 24(2)(a1/2)(2) is the most severe motor vehicle penalty in the section outside of the operating-under-the-influence provisions, and it is written to remove most of a sentencing court’s usual flexibility.

The range is imprisonment in the state prison for not less than two and one-half years nor more than ten years, together with a fine of not less than $1,000 nor more than $5,000; or, alternatively, imprisonment in a jail or house of correction for not less than one year nor more than two and one-half years, with the same fine.

Then the statute closes the exits. It provides that the sentence “shall not be reduced to less than one year, nor suspended”, and that no person convicted under the paragraph is “eligible for probation, parole, or furlough or receive any deduction from his sentence until such person has served at least one year of such sentence”. There is a narrow proviso allowing the commissioner of correction to act on the recommendation of the warden, superintendent or administrator in charge of the institution, but the one year floor is the design of the paragraph.

The Element Most Summaries Miss

Put paragraphs (1) and (2) side by side and one difference stands out.

Paragraph (1), the injury tier, says the driver “goes away after knowingly colliding with or otherwise causing injury to any person”.

Paragraph (2), the death tier, says the driver “goes away to avoid prosecution or evade apprehension after knowingly colliding with or otherwise causing injury to any person”.

The death tier carries a purpose element the injury tier does not. It is not enough, on the face of the paragraph, that the driver left and that someone later died. The statute describes leaving in order to avoid prosecution or evade apprehension.

That distinction is not academic. It is the reason the facts about what a driver did in the minutes and hours afterwards matter so much in the most serious of these cases, and it is a detail that most plain English summaries of Massachusetts hit-and-run law simply drop. Anyone reading this because a family member has been charged should understand that the tiers are not just a sliding scale of harm; the top tier has an extra thing in it that has to be established.

What the Statute Does Not Say

It is worth being just as precise about the gaps, because the internet fills them in confidently and wrongly.

The paragraphs quoted above set fines and terms of imprisonment. They contain no licence suspension provision, no points schedule, and no insurance surcharge language. Registry licence consequences in Massachusetts are administered under separate provisions and registry processes, and this article does not state a suspension length, because no such length appears in the text quoted here.

The statute also says nothing about how far a driver has to travel before leaving becomes leaving. There is no distance in the text. The conduct described is going away without stopping and making known the three items, and a driver who parks around the corner and walks away has still gone away without making anything known.

Finally, the criminal penalty is not the civil case. A conviction does not by itself decide who pays for an injury, and an acquittal or a case that is never charged does not close the civil door. Those run on different tracks, with different standards of proof, and often on different timelines.

The Five Day Report, and the Clause Written for Victims

M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 26 requires every person operating a motor vehicle involved in a crash “in which any person is killed or injured or in which there is damage in excess of one thousand dollars to any one vehicle or other property” to report in writing to the registrar within five days, and to send a copy to the police department with jurisdiction over the way where the crash happened.

Buried in that section is a clause written for exactly the situation this article is about:

“provided, however, that such police department shall accept a report filed by an owner or operator whose vehicle has been damaged in an accident in which another person has unlawfully left the scene of such accident.”

That is a statutory instruction that a hit-and-run victim’s report be accepted. It exists because people were being turned away. If a department is reluctant to take a report on a parking lot hit-and-run, that clause is worth knowing by name.

The section also provides that the report is not required during the period of incapacity of a person physically incapable of making one, and that where an operator who is not the owner is physically incapable, the owner files within five days on the knowledge and information available. More on the mechanics is in the article on how to report a car accident in Massachusetts.

Getting Paid When the Driver Is Never Found

This is the question that actually matters to most people who search for this topic after being hit, and the answer in Massachusetts is better than they expect.

Personal injury protection pays first, without regard to fault. M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34A defines personal injury protection as benefits payable “without regard to negligence or gross negligence or fault of any kind… to the amount or limit of at least eight thousand dollars on account of injury to or death of any one person”. Because it does not depend on fault, it does not depend on identifying the driver who fled. It covers a pedestrian struck by an insured vehicle as well as occupants. The detail is in the article on personal injury protection in Massachusetts.

Uninsured motorist coverage is the one built for this. M.G.L. c. 175, sec. 113L(1) requires that no policy be issued in Massachusetts unless it provides coverage “for the protection of persons insured thereunder who are legally entitled to recover damages from owners or operators of uninsured motor vehicles, trailers or semitrailers and hit-and-run motor vehicles”. The phrase “hit-and-run motor vehicles” is the statute’s own. An unidentified driver is treated as an uninsured one, and the claim is made against your own policy. What that claim involves, and how underinsured coverage differs, is set out in uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage in Massachusetts.

The compulsory limits set the floor, not the ceiling. M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34A requires liability coverage of at least $20,000 for injury to or death of any one person and at least $40,000 for any one accident injuring more than one person. Those are minimums; many policies carry more, and the uninsured motorist limits on a given policy are worth reading before assuming what is available.

Two practical cautions. A hit-and-run uninsured motorist claim is still a claim, made to an insurer, with the same investigation and the same recorded statement request as any other, and the fact that your own insurer is on the other side of it does not change that. And where a claim is contested on the basis that the injured person was partly at fault, M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 85 governs how that reduces recovery, which is covered in comparative negligence in Massachusetts.

What Helps in the First Hour

Nothing on this list is legal advice, and none of it is a substitute for medical care, which comes first. It is a list of the things that most often turn an unidentified vehicle into an identified one.

• Call the police from the scene and get a report started where the crash happened. The five day registry report under sec. 26 is a separate document from the police report, and both are useful.
• Write down whatever fragment you have before it fades: a partial plate, colour, make, body style, damage location, direction of travel, a bumper sticker, a roof rack. Partial plates identify vehicles more often than people assume.
• Photograph the scene before anything moves, including debris, paint transfer, and the position of the vehicles. Paint transfer in particular can tie a specific vehicle to a specific collision.
• Look up, not just around. In a lot, the cameras are usually on the building rather than on the poles. Ask the business the same day, because retention windows are frequently measured in days.
• Ask people who were there for a name and a number, not just an account. A witness you cannot reach later is not a witness.
• Get evaluated even if you feel able to walk away. The medical record made close in time is the record that documents an injury, and personal injury protection is available regardless of who was at fault.
• Report it to your own insurer promptly, because the uninsured motorist claim runs through your own policy and those policies contain notice requirements.

The general deadline for a personal injury claim in Massachusetts is three years under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2A, with important exceptions, and claims involving a public body carry much shorter presentment deadlines. Both are covered in the Massachusetts statute of limitations for personal injury. Whether a particular injury claim can proceed beyond personal injury protection benefits also depends on the tort threshold, discussed in the serious injury threshold.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is the penalty for hitting a parked car and leaving in Massachusetts?

A: If nobody was in the car and nobody was hurt, it falls under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 24(2)(a), which punishes going away after knowingly colliding with or otherwise causing injury to any other vehicle or property “by a fine of not less than twenty dollars nor more than two hundred dollars or by imprisonment for not less than two weeks nor more than two years, or both”. The fine is low and the custodial ceiling is not. If anyone in or near the car was injured, the case is not in this paragraph at all; it moves to sec. 24(2)(a1/2)(1), where the penalty is imprisonment of six months to two years and a fine of $500 to $1,000.

Q: Is leaving the scene a felony in Massachusetts?

A: The statute does not use the words felony or misdemeanour in these paragraphs; it states places of confinement and terms. That distinction is where the practical answer lies. The property tier and the injury tier are punished by imprisonment for terms of up to two years, the kind of sentence served in a house of correction. The death tier at sec. 24(2)(a1/2)(2) authorises imprisonment in the state prison for two and one-half to ten years, and an offence punishable by state prison is what Massachusetts law treats as a felony. So the death tier is the one that carries that character on the face of the statute.

Q: Does the Massachusetts hit-and-run law apply in a parking lot?

A: Yes, and this is the most commonly mistaken point. The personal injury paragraphs apply on any way or place “to which the public has right of access” and also on any way or place “to which members of the public shall have access as invitees or licensees”. A store lot, a mall road, a hospital garage and an apartment complex lot are all places the public reaches as invitees or licensees. Being off a public road does not remove the duty to stop and make known name, residence and registration number.

Q: What exactly do I have to do to comply?

A: Stop, and make known three things: your name, your residence, and the registration number of your vehicle. That is the language every tier of the statute uses. Stopping without giving those details does not satisfy it, and neither does leaving them with someone who is not connected to the property or the person involved. Where nobody is present to receive them, calling the police from the scene and reporting the collision is the practical route, and a written report to the registrar is required within five days under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 26 if anyone was killed or injured or damage to any one vehicle or property exceeds $1,000.

Q: What is the difference between the injury tier and the death tier?

A: Two things. The penalties, and one extra element. Paragraph (1) applies where a person is injured but nobody dies, and it requires only that the driver “goes away” after knowingly colliding with or causing injury. Paragraph (2), which applies where the injuries result in death, requires that the driver “goes away to avoid prosecution or evade apprehension”. That purpose language appears in the death tier and not in the injury tier, and it is a real element rather than a description. The penalties then diverge sharply, with the death tier reaching state prison for two and one-half to ten years and carrying a one year floor that cannot be suspended.

Q: Will I lose my licence for leaving the scene in Massachusetts?

A: The penalty paragraphs quoted here set fines and terms of imprisonment and contain no licence provision, so this article does not state a suspension length. Registry licence consequences in Massachusetts are administered under separate provisions and separate registry processes, and what applies depends on the charge, the disposition and the driver’s record. Anyone facing a charge should ask their own defence lawyer about the registry consequence specifically, because it frequently matters more to daily life than the fine does.

Q: The driver who hit me was never found. Can I still recover anything?

A: Usually yes, through your own policy rather than theirs. Personal injury protection under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34A pays at least $8,000 for one person “without regard to negligence or gross negligence or fault of any kind”, so it does not depend on identifying anyone. Uninsured motorist coverage under M.G.L. c. 175, sec. 113L is required on every Massachusetts policy and expressly extends to “hit-and-run motor vehicles”, which means an unidentified driver is handled as an uninsured one. What the claim is worth depends on the injuries, the treatment record and the policy limits, and it is still a claim that has to be documented and proved.

Q: How long do I have to bring a claim after a hit-and-run?

A: For a personal injury claim the general period is three years under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2A, subject to exceptions. That is not the only clock. Uninsured motorist coverage is a contract claim against your own insurer and the policy itself contains notice and cooperation requirements that can bite long before three years. If a public vehicle or a public body is involved, the presentment deadlines under M.G.L. c. 258 are far shorter. The registry report deadline under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 26 is five days. The safe assumption is that the shortest applicable deadline is much sooner than three years.

Q: Is Jimmy Knows AI giving me legal advice?

A: No. This is general information about Massachusetts law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. The statutes above are quoted as they read on malegislature.gov, but whether a particular paragraph applies to a particular collision, what a criminal case will do, and what an injury claim is worth all depend on facts this article cannot know. For advice about a specific situation, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS.

Talking to a Lawyer

People arrive at this question from two directions, and the useful answer is different for each.

Someone who has been charged needs a defence lawyer, and needs one before talking to anybody about what happened. The tiers matter, the extra element in the death tier matters, and the registry consequence often matters more to a person’s life than the fine. None of that is what this article is for, and a general information page is a poor substitute for counsel on a pending charge.

Someone who has been hit and left is in a different position. The criminal case, if there ever is one, will not pay for the treatment. The money question runs through personal injury protection and through uninsured motorist coverage, and it runs on the strength of what was documented in the first days: the police report, the registry report, the photographs, the paint transfer, the camera footage that gets overwritten if nobody asks, and the medical record made close in time. That evidence decays quickly, and in a hit-and-run it decays while the person is still hoping the driver turns up.

Crash patterns across the state, town by town, are published in the Massachusetts crash report. Jim Glaser Law handles injury claims across Massachusetts, including Boston, Worcester, Springfield and Lowell. Fees are contingent, meaning no fee unless there is a recovery, and the client may be responsible for costs and expenses.

The number is (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.