How Many Crashes Happen on Interstate 195 in Massachusetts?

From 2022 through 2024, MassDOT crash records place 1,828 crashes on Interstate 195 in Massachusetts, 12 of them fatal and 596 with a non-fatal injury. That injury figure is the one that stands out: 32.6 percent of Interstate 195 crashes hurt someone, against 23.1 percent for every crash on an Interstate-class road in the state. The road runs from the Rhode Island line in Seekonk through Fall River and New Bedford to Wareham, and its crashes look different from those on the Boston-area highways. Almost half involve one vehicle alone, and a quarter happen in the dark on stretches with no roadway lighting.

If you were hurt in a crash on Interstate 195 and want to talk through what comes next, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is free. This page is general information about Massachusetts law and public crash data, not legal advice about your situation.

A few terms are used throughout. A fatal crash rate here means fatal crashes for every 1,000 recorded crashes, which measures how severe a road’s crashes are, not how likely a driver is to crash. The injury share is the percentage of recorded crashes in which at least one person had a non-fatal injury. A single vehicle crash is one where a vehicle leaves its lane or the road and hits something other than another moving vehicle: a guardrail, a tree, a deer, a ditch. The Interstate class is every crash MassDOT places on a road it classifies as an Interstate, the benchmark used on this page.

Where Interstate 195 Runs

Interstate 195 enters Massachusetts from East Providence, Rhode Island, and crosses twelve communities before it ends at Interstate 495 and Route 25 in Wareham. From west to east:

1. Seekonk and Rehoboth, the first miles east of the Rhode Island line.
2. Swansea and Somerset, ending at the Braga Bridge over the Taunton River.
3. Fall River, where Route 24 meets the highway.
4. Westport and Dartmouth, the stretch between the two cities.
5. New Bedford and Fairhaven, on either side of the Acushnet River.
6. Mattapoisett, Marion and Wareham, the Plymouth County end, where traffic continues to Cape Cod.

Nine of the twelve are in Bristol County and three (Mattapoisett, Marion and Wareham) are in Plymouth County. By town sums, 1,617 of the 1,828 crashes were in Bristol County and 211 in Plymouth County.

How These Numbers Were Counted

The counts come from the MassDOT IMPACT open crash data for 2022, 2023 and 2024. Each crash record carries two descriptions of where it happened. One is the roadway text the officer typed. The other is the name from the state road inventory, which MassDOT attaches when it maps the crash. This page counts by the inventory name, “Interstate 195”, for a reason that matters on every highway: from 2023 the State Police record most highway crashes by mile marker and leave the typed field blank, so a count built on the typed text falls in 2023 and 2024 for reasons that have nothing to do with crashes.

As a check, the mile marker field was compared with the inventory name. In 2024, 213 of the 222 crashes mile-marked to Interstate 195 carried the inventory name. The other nine were on ramps or had no name attached, and ramp crashes are not included in the figures here. The town totals in each year add up exactly to the road total.

The Three-Year Record

Measure	Interstate 195	All Interstate-class crashes	All Massachusetts crashes
Crashes, 2022 to 2024	1,828	41,260	405,242
Fatal crashes	12	156	1,087
Fatal crashes per 1,000 crashes	6.56	3.78	2.68
Crashes with a non-fatal injury	596	9,525	92,761
Injury share	32.60%	23.09%	22.89%

By year, Interstate 195 had 679 crashes in 2022, 616 in 2023 and 533 in 2024. Fatal crashes were 5, 2 and 5.

The injury share is the finding

Twelve fatal crashes is a small number. A rate built on it moves a long way if one year has two more or two fewer, and the years here were 5, 2 and 5. The fatal rate of 6.56 per 1,000 crashes is higher than the Interstate class, but two other long Interstates counted the same way come out close to it: Interstate 495 at 5.91 (40 fatal in 6,763 crashes) and Interstate 95 at 5.54 (19 in 3,428).

The injury share rests on 596 crashes, and it does not move. It was 32.25 percent in 2022, 34.25 percent in 2023 and 31.14 percent in 2024. Counted by the same method, Interstate 95 is 24.07 percent, Interstate 495 is 23.95 percent and Interstate 91 is 25.10 percent.

A number like this can be a recording habit and not a road. Injury is a field an officer fills in, and departments differ. That explanation was tested. The State Police wrote 96.9 percent of the Interstate 195 reports, and the same agency’s other crashes in Bristol County show an injury share of 26.80 percent (1,379 of 5,146). Crashes on the other Interstates in Bristol County, mainly Interstate 95 and Interstate 495, show 25.78 percent (506 of 1,963). The officers and the county are the same, and Interstate 195 is still roughly six to seven points higher.

What kind of crashes

The difference shows up in how the crashes happen.

• Single vehicle crashes: 813, or 44.47 percent. On Interstate-class roads statewide the figure is 29.84 percent. Rear-end crashes, the signature of stop-and-go traffic, are 33.04 percent on Interstate 195 against 44.54 percent for the class.
• Leaving the road. The first harmful event was a tree in 97 crashes, a ditch in 61 and an embankment in 36. Together those are 10.61 percent of Interstate 195 crashes, against 3.69 percent for the Interstate class. Guardrail strikes (199) and median barrier strikes (102) add another 16.47 percent.
• Deer: 172 crashes, or 9.41 percent. That is more than twice the Interstate-class share (4.06 percent) and more than three times the statewide share (2.81 percent).
• Large trucks and buses are a smaller part of the picture. Sixty-four crashes (3.50 percent) were federally reportable commercial vehicle crashes, against 6.10 percent for the Interstate class.

Deer crashes rarely hurt anyone. Of the 172, 161 were property damage only, 10 had an injury and none was fatal. That means deer pull the road’s injury share down. Leave them out and the injury share of the remaining 1,656 crashes is 35.39 percent.

Ten of the 12 fatal crashes were single vehicle crashes. The first harmful event in the fatal crashes was a tree in three, a guardrail in two, another vehicle in traffic in two, and an embankment, a median barrier, a bridge overhead structure and a rollover in one each (one record has no valid entry). Ten of the 12 happened on a dry road.

When they happen

Light conditions separate Interstate 195 from the urban highways. Of its 1,828 crashes, 454 (24.84 percent) happened in the dark on a roadway with no lighting, against 15.00 percent for the Interstate class. Only 9.46 percent happened in the dark on a lighted roadway, against 15.55 percent for the class. Swansea (73), Dartmouth (62), Seekonk (52) and Westport (48) recorded the most crashes on unlighted road.

The overnight hours carry more of the load than usual. From midnight to 4:59 a.m. the road recorded 236 crashes, 12.91 percent of its total. For all Massachusetts crashes that share is 6.41 percent. Four of the 12 fatal crashes happened between 1 and 4 a.m. The single busiest hour is still the evening commute: 145 crashes between 5 and 6 p.m., and 378 (20.68 percent) between 3 and 6 p.m.

The fatal crashes did not follow the darkness the way they do on some roads. Six of the 12 were in daylight, four in the dark on unlighted road and two in the dark on lighted road.

By month, June and November are tied for the most crashes (183 each), followed by October (177). March is the lowest (101). November’s count is carried partly by deer: 48 of the 172 deer crashes were in November, and another 64 were in May and June.

Town by Town

Town (west to east)	Interstate 195 crashes	With injury	Fatal	Town’s total crashes	Interstate 195 share of town total
Seekonk	191	69	1	2,167	8.8%
Rehoboth	43	13	0	791	5.4%
Swansea	231	72	2	1,722	13.4%
Somerset	141	48	2	1,330	10.6%
Fall River	322	122	1	9,045	3.6%
Westport	146	41	2	1,108	13.2%
Dartmouth	189	65	2	1,763	10.7%
New Bedford	258	81	1	11,070	2.3%
Fairhaven	96	27	0	1,559	6.2%
Mattapoisett	78	20	0	378	20.6%
Marion	85	28	1	414	20.5%
Wareham	48	10	0	1,716	2.8%

Three things in the table are worth reading closely.

The highway is one fifth of everything in Mattapoisett and Marion. In each town, about one recorded crash in five over the three years was on Interstate 195. These are small towns with a few miles of Interstate, and the highway shapes their crash record more than any local road does. In Mattapoisett, 27 of the 78 highway crashes (34.6 percent) were deer strikes.

Fall River has the most crashes and the highest injury share among the larger counts. Its 322 crashes include 122 with an injury, 37.9 percent. Seekonk (36.1 percent), Dartmouth (34.4 percent) and Somerset (34.0 percent) follow. The two cities account for 580 of the road’s 1,828 crashes, but the highway is a small part of each city’s own total: 3.6 percent in Fall River and 2.3 percent in New Bedford. If you are looking for the fuller picture in those cities, see the Fall River crash report and the New Bedford crash report, or the pages on Fall River auto accidents and New Bedford auto accidents.

Westport’s fatal count is mostly the highway. Two of Westport’s three fatal crashes in the period were on Interstate 195. So was Marion’s only one. In the cities it is the reverse: one of Fall River’s 11 fatal crashes and one of New Bedford’s 14 were on the highway.

The count is falling, mostly at the Rhode Island end

Recorded crashes on Interstate 195 fell 21.5 percent in two years, from 679 to 533. The fall is not even along the road. In Seekonk, Rehoboth and Swansea together, crashes went from 194 in 2022 to 114 in 2024, a drop of 41 percent; Seekonk alone went from 83 to 42. In the four towns east of New Bedford the count was 113, then 93, then 101, close to flat. Mattapoisett recorded exactly 26 in each of the three years.

The records do not say why. They carry no traffic volume, so they cannot show whether fewer vehicles used the western end, whether something about the road changed, or whether this is ordinary year-to-year movement. It is reported here as a pattern in the count and nothing more.

Answer Capsule

MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024 place 1,828 crashes on Interstate 195 in Massachusetts, from Seekonk to Wareham: 679, 616 and 533 by year. Twelve were fatal (6.56 per 1,000 crashes, against 3.78 for all Interstate-class crashes), a small count that should be read with care. The steadier finding is injuries: 596 crashes, 32.6 percent, involved a non-fatal injury, against 23.1 percent for the Interstate class and 24 to 25 percent on Interstates 95, 495 and 91. Single vehicle crashes are 44.5 percent of the total, 24.8 percent happened in the dark on unlighted road, and 9.4 percent were deer strikes. Fall River (322) and New Bedford (258) recorded the most crashes. A civil claim from a crash on the road is filed under M.G.L. c. 223, sec. 1 in a county where one of the parties lives or has a usual place of business, and must be started within three years under c. 260, sec. 2A.

Interstate 195 connects in New Bedford with the Route 140 expressway north to Freetown, Lakeville and Taunton, which recorded 6 fatal crashes on 406 crashes over the same three years; see Route 140 crash data.

At its eastern end in Wareham, traffic bound for Cape Cod continues on Route 25 to the Bourne Bridge, which recorded 310 crashes over the same three years; see Route 25 crash data.

The Law That Applies to a Crash on Interstate 195

The crash data describes the road. Four statutes decide what a person hurt on it can do.

Your own policy pays first. Under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34A, Personal Injury Protection pays medical expenses and part of lost wages up to at least $8,000 “without regard to negligence or gross negligence or fault of any kind.” This matters on a road where 44 percent of crashes involve one vehicle. A passenger in a car that left the road has PIP, and may also have a claim against the driver. See how PIP works in Massachusetts.

Fault is shared by percentage. Under c. 231, sec. 85, a person can recover as long as their own negligence “was not greater than the total amount of negligence attributable to the person or persons against whom recovery is sought,” and the damages are reduced by their share.

Where the case is filed depends on where the parties live, not where the crash was. M.G.L. c. 223, sec. 1 provides that a transitory action, which includes an injury claim, “shall… be brought in the county where one of them lives or has his usual place of business.” A New Bedford resident hit in Seekonk by a driver from Boston has a choice between Bristol County and Suffolk County, and the fact that the crash was in Seekonk decides nothing by itself. If neither party lives in Massachusetts, which happens on a highway that begins at the state line, the statute allows the action in any county. The Bristol County venue guide and the Plymouth County venue guide list the courts.

The deadline is three years. Under c. 260, sec. 2A, an action for personal injuries must be commenced within three years after the cause of action accrues.

There is a fifth statute that applies only to a narrow kind of claim, and it is strict. If the cause of the crash was a defect in the road itself, c. 81, sec. 18 makes the Commonwealth liable for defects “within the limits of the constructed traveled roadway” of a state highway, with three limits written into the same sentence: no liability “because of the want of a railing,” none during “construction, reconstruction or repair,” and a recovery that cannot exceed $4,000. Notice under c. 84, sec. 18 must be given within thirty days. On a road where so many crashes involve a vehicle leaving the pavement, the railing exception is the part people do not expect.

What to Do After a Crash on Interstate 195

1. Get out of the travel lanes if the vehicle moves. A quarter of this road’s crashes happen on unlighted stretches, and a stopped car is hard to see.
2. Call 911. The State Police wrote 97 percent of the reports on this highway. Ask for the report number before the trooper leaves.
3. Get medical care the same day, even if the injury seems minor. PIP under c. 90, sec. 34A covers the first bills regardless of fault.
4. Photograph the scene, the vehicles and the mile marker. The mile marker is how the State Police locate a highway crash, and it is how the record will be found later.
5. File the Massachusetts crash report within five days. Under c. 90, sec. 26, a driver in a crash where anyone was killed or injured, or with more than $1,000 in damage to any one vehicle or other property, must report in writing to the Registrar and send a copy to the police department with jurisdiction. See how to report a car accident in Massachusetts.
6. Notify your own insurer promptly, and do not give a recorded statement to another driver’s insurer before you understand the claim.
7. If a deer was involved, say so in the crash report and to your insurer, and photograph the animal or the damage it left. Which part of your policy responds depends on the coverages you bought. See the Massachusetts deer crash data for what the records show about those crashes.

What These Numbers Do Not Show

• Risk per mile or per trip. The records count crashes, not traffic. A road can show a high injury share because its crashes are severe or because its minor crashes are fewer or go unreported. Nothing here ranks Interstate 195 as more or less dangerous to drive than another road.
• Ramps and interchanges. Crashes on ramps carry ramp names in the road inventory and are left out. The Route 24 interchange in Fall River and the Interstate 495 interchange in Wareham each recorded ramp crashes that are not in these totals.
• Cause. The first harmful event says what the vehicle hit, not why. A tree strike at 2 a.m. can follow from speed, fatigue, impairment, an animal or another vehicle that did not stop.
• The Rhode Island side. The highway continues to Providence. MassDOT records stop at the state line.
• Anything after 2024. These are the three most recent complete years in the open data.

For the county-wide picture, see the Bristol County crash data. For the roads that meet or run beside this one, see Route 24, Route 6, Interstate 495 and Interstate 95. Fixed-object crashes statewide are covered in the utility pole and tree crash data, and town numbers are in the Massachusetts crash report.

Key terms

• Road inventory name: the official name MassDOT attaches to a crash location when it maps the crash, used here in place of the roadway text an officer types.
• Fatal crash rate: fatal crashes for every 1,000 recorded crashes on a road, a measure of how severe its crashes are.
• Injury share: the percentage of recorded crashes in which at least one person had a non-fatal injury.
• Single vehicle crash: a crash in which one vehicle strikes something other than another moving vehicle, such as a guardrail, tree, animal or ditch.
• Personal Injury Protection (PIP): the part of a Massachusetts auto policy that pays medical bills and lost wages up to at least $8,000 regardless of fault, under c. 90, sec. 34A.
• Transitory action: a lawsuit, such as an injury claim, that is not tied to a piece of land and is filed under c. 223, sec. 1 where one of the parties lives or does business.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How many crashes happen on Interstate 195 in Massachusetts each year?

A: MassDOT records show 679 in 2022, 616 in 2023 and 533 in 2024, a total of 1,828. Twelve were fatal and 596 involved a non-fatal injury. Ramp crashes are not included.

Q: Is Interstate 195 more dangerous than other Massachusetts highways?

A: The records cannot answer that, because they do not include traffic volume. What they show is that a recorded crash on Interstate 195 is more likely to involve an injury: 32.6 percent, against 23.1 percent for all Interstate-class crashes and 24 to 25 percent on Interstates 95, 495 and 91 counted the same way.

Q: Which town has the most crashes on Interstate 195?

A: Fall River, with 322 from 2022 through 2024, followed by New Bedford (258), Swansea (231), Seekonk (191) and Dartmouth (189). Measured against each town’s own total, the highway matters most in Mattapoisett and Marion, where it is about one fifth of all recorded crashes.

Q: What causes most of the crashes on Interstate 195?

A: The records list what was struck, not the cause. Single vehicle crashes are 44.5 percent of the total, well above the 29.8 percent on Interstate-class roads statewide. Guardrails (199), deer (172), median barriers (102) and trees (97) were the most common things hit after other vehicles.

Q: How common are deer crashes on Interstate 195?

A: There were 172 in three years, 9.4 percent of all crashes on the road, against 2.8 percent statewide. November had 48 and May and June together had 64. Swansea (37) and Mattapoisett (27) recorded the most. Ten involved an injury and none was fatal.

Q: If I was hurt on Interstate 195 in Seekonk, do I have to sue in Bristol County?

A: No. Under M.G.L. c. 223, sec. 1, an injury claim is filed in a county where one of the parties lives or has a usual place of business. The location of the crash does not decide it. If neither party lives in Massachusetts, the action may be brought in any county.

Q: Can I sue the state if a road defect on Interstate 195 caused my crash?

A: Only in narrow circumstances. M.G.L. c. 81, sec. 18 covers defects within the constructed traveled roadway of a state highway, excludes the lack of a railing and injuries during construction or repair, and limits recovery to no more than $4,000. Written notice is required within thirty days under c. 84, sec. 18.

Q: How long do I have to bring a claim after a crash on Interstate 195?

A: Three years from the date the claim accrues for a personal injury action, under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2A. Shorter deadlines apply to specific steps: five days for the crash report under c. 90, sec. 26, and thirty days for notice of a road defect claim.

Q: Is Jimmy Knows AI giving me legal advice?

A: No. This page is general information about Massachusetts law and public crash data for educational purposes. It is not legal advice for your situation and does not create an attorney-client relationship. For advice about your own crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS.

Talking to a Lawyer

A crash on Interstate 195 often leaves one damaged car, a State Police report number and an injury that looked smaller at the roadside than it does a week later. The questions that follow are the same ones this page walks through: whose insurance pays first, who else may be responsible, and which deadlines are already running. Call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is free.