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How Many Crashes Happen on Interstate 391 in Massachusetts?
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From 2022 through 2024, MassDOT crash records place 392 crashes on Interstate 391, 4 of them fatal and 138 with a non-fatal injury, and 347 of the 392 were in Chicopee. The short highway that carries traffic from Interstate 91 north through Chicopee to Holyoke stands out for one reason: a crash on it injures someone 35.2 percent of the time, against 23.1 percent on Interstate highways across Massachusetts. That gap holds for every common kind of crash on the road, so it is not explained by the road simply having more of a dangerous type.
If you were hurt in a crash on Interstate 391 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. 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 hits something other than another moving vehicle, such as a guardrail, a median barrier or a pole. The first harmful event is the first thing the vehicle struck, as the officer recorded it. The Interstate class is every crash MassDOT places on an Interstate highway anywhere in Massachusetts, used here as the comparison group. The road inventory name is the street name MassDOT attaches to a crash when it maps it.
Where Interstate 391 Runs
Interstate 391 is a spur of Interstate 91. It leaves the main highway in Chicopee near the Springfield line, runs north through Chicopee, and ends in Holyoke, with interchanges that include Route 116 and Route 141. All three communities it touches are in Hampden County. The road inventory carries it under one name, Interstate 391.
How These Numbers Were Counted
The counts come from the MassDOT IMPACT open crash data for 2022, 2023 and 2024, counted by the road inventory name, because from 2023 the State Police record most highway crashes by mile marker and often leave the typed roadway field blank.
Three checks were run before any number was used:
- The name was checked against the mile markers. Every crash the police mile-marked to Interstate 391 carries the inventory name Interstate 391, apart from one 2022 record with no name and one 2024 record placed on a ramp.
- Ramps were left out. Fifty-eight crashes over the three years were on ramps named for Interstate 391 (20, 25 and 13), and none of them is in the totals below.
- The totals were reconciled. The town counts add up exactly to the road total in each year: 153 in 2022, 141 in 2023 and 98 in 2024. Every breakdown on this page, by type, light, time and town, adds up to 392.
The Three-Year Record
| Measure | Interstate 391 | All Interstate crashes | All Massachusetts crashes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crashes, 2022 to 2024 | 392 | 41,260 | 405,243 |
| Fatal crashes | 4 | 156 | 1,087 |
| Fatal crashes per 1,000 crashes | 10.20 | 3.78 | 2.68 |
| Crashes with a non-fatal injury | 138 | 9,525 | 92,761 |
| Injury share | 35.20% | 23.09% | 22.89% |
By year, the road had 153, 141 and 98 crashes, and 51, 47 and 40 injury crashes. The injury share was 33.3 percent in 2022, 33.3 percent in 2023 and 40.8 percent in 2024, so the high figure is not one bad year.
The count itself fell by more than a third from 2022 to 2024, and in Chicopee from 143 to 86, while crashes statewide and on all Interstates stayed nearly flat. The records carry no traffic counts or construction history, so this page does not offer a reason for the decline.
The kind of crash differs from the Interstate class in a few ways:
- Single vehicle crashes are 38.0 percent (149 of 392), against 29.8 percent on all Interstates.
- A median barrier was the first thing struck in 45 crashes, 11.5 percent, against 4.7 percent.
- A guardrail was the first thing struck in 47, 12.0 percent, against 9.2 percent.
- 24.0 percent happened in the dark on a lighted roadway (94), against 15.6 percent. Only 7.4 percent were in the dark on unlighted road, half the class figure.
- Deer were the first thing struck in 9 crashes, 2.3 percent, against 4.1 percent.
- A large truck or bus was involved in 5, 1.3 percent, against 6.1 percent.
Rear-end crashes, the most common type on any busy highway, are 42.1 percent here (165), close to the 44.5 percent for all Interstates.
Why the Injury Share Is the Finding
A higher injury share on one road can come from four places: how the reports were written, one unusual year, the weather, or a mix of crash types that tend to hurt people. Each was checked.
Who wrote the reports. The State Police wrote 381 of the 392 reports, 97.2 percent, close to the 98.4 percent they wrote across all Interstates. The same agency’s other crashes in Hampden County carry an injury share of 25.2 percent (1,308 of 5,189). Every other Interstate crash in Hampden County carries 24.5 percent (963 of 3,932). The section of Interstate 91 through the five Hampden County communities carries 27.8 percent, and Interstate 291 in Springfield and Chicopee 27.4 percent. The same troopers, in the same county, record injuries less often everywhere else.
One year. The share was above 33 percent in all three years.
Weather. Snow, ice and slush were on the road in 36 crashes, and 10 of them involved an injury, 27.8 percent. On dry pavement it was 107 of 291, 36.8 percent. Bad weather pulls the figure down, not up.
The mix of crashes. This is the test that matters. If the road simply had more of the kinds of crashes that hurt people, each kind would injure people at the usual rate. It does not:
| Kind of crash | Interstate 391 injury share | All Interstates injury share |
|---|---|---|
| Rear-end | 35.2% (58 of 165) | 24.7% |
| Single vehicle | 39.6% (59 of 149) | 23.9% |
| First struck another vehicle in traffic | 31.6% (79 of 250) | 22.8% |
| First struck the median barrier | 53.3% (24 of 45) | 27.4% |
| First struck a guardrail | 40.4% (19 of 47) | 25.0% |
Applying the statewide Interstate injury share for each kind of collision to Interstate 391’s own mix predicts about 92 injury crashes over the three years. The road recorded 138.
The records do not say why. They record what was struck and when, not how fast, and they carry no traffic counts. This page reports the difference and does not supply a cause.
The Four Fatal Crashes
Four fatal crashes in three years is a small number, and no rate built on it should be ranked against other roads. At the Interstate class rate of 3.78 per 1,000, a road with 392 crashes would be expected to have about 1.5. All four were in Chicopee, and the reports record six deaths:
| When | What the report records |
|---|---|
| July 2022, 7 p.m. hour | Motorcycle, one vehicle, daylight; overturned, ran off the road and struck a tree; operator recorded as exceeding the speed limit. The typed roadway is the ramp from Route 116 northbound onto Interstate 391 southbound, and the crash is mapped to the highway. |
| December 2022, 1 a.m. hour | Passenger car changing lanes, dark on a lighted roadway; the most harmful event was a ditch; driver recorded as exceeding the speed limit. |
| May 2023, 3 a.m. hour | Passenger car, one vehicle, dark on a lighted roadway; struck a light pole or post; three deaths. |
| October 2023, 1 a.m. hour | Motorcycle struck a parked tractor-trailer in the southbound lanes, dark on an unlighted stretch. |
Three of the four were between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m., two involved a motorcycle, and on all four reports the youngest driver involved was 21 to 24 years old. The reports say what happened, not why, and this page adds nothing to them.
Chicopee and Holyoke
| Community | I-391 crashes | Fatal | Injury | Injury share | All crashes in the community | I-391 share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chicopee | 347 | 4 | 125 | 36.0% | 5,238 | 6.6% |
| Holyoke | 43 | 0 | 12 | 27.9% | 4,245 | 1.0% |
| Springfield | 2 | 0 | 1 | too few | 11,109 | under 0.1% |
Chicopee holds 88.5 percent of the road’s crashes and all four fatal ones. It is also where the road disappears from the usual town road lists. The Chicopee crash report lists the city’s highest-crash roads from the typed roadway field, which State Police reports on highways often leave blank, so Interstate 391 is not on it. Counted by the inventory name, the highway had 86 crashes in Chicopee in 2024. That would put it second among Chicopee roads that year, behind Memorial Drive (203) and ahead of Montgomery Street (59).
Holyoke recorded 43 crashes on its stretch, and its local police wrote 11 of those reports, the only reports on the road not written by the State Police. Rear-end crashes were 22 of the 43. The Holyoke crash report has every road in the city.
Springfield recorded two crashes mapped to Interstate 391 in three years, too few to describe.
Answer Capsule
MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024 place 392 crashes on Interstate 391, counted on the road inventory name with 58 ramp crashes excluded: 153, 141 and 98 by year, 347 of them in Chicopee and 43 in Holyoke. Four were fatal, all in Chicopee, more than two and a half times what the Interstate-class rate would predict, and the reports record six deaths; three of the four were between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. and two involved a motorcycle. One hundred thirty-eight crashes, 35.2 percent, involved a non-fatal injury, against 23.1 percent for all Interstates and about 25 percent for the State Police’s other Hampden County crashes. The gap appears in every common kind of crash: rear-end 35.2 against 24.7 percent, single vehicle 39.6 against 23.9, median barrier strikes 53.3 against 27.4, so the road’s crash mix predicts about 92 injury crashes where it recorded 138. The records do not give a cause. A claim from a crash on the road must be started within three years under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2A.
The Law That Applies to a Crash on Interstate 391
The crash data describes the road. A handful of 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.” A claim for PIP benefits must be presented as soon as practicable and in every case within two years of the accident under c. 90, sec. 34M. See whether Massachusetts is a no-fault state.
Pain and suffering has a threshold. Under c. 231, sec. 6D, a person hurt in a motor vehicle crash in Massachusetts can recover for pain and suffering only if reasonable and necessary medical expenses are in excess of $2,000, or the injury is a death, the loss of a body member, permanent and serious disfigurement, a described loss of sight or hearing, or a fracture. On a road where more than a third of crashes injure someone, that threshold decides a lot of claims.
Partial fault reduces, and does not always bar, recovery. 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. Rear-end and same-direction sideswipe crashes, 56 percent of this road’s total, often turn on following distance and lane changes. See how partial fault works.
A death opens a different claim. Under M.G.L. c. 229, sec. 2, the executor or administrator brings a wrongful death action within three years of the death, and punitive damages of not less than $5,000 are available where the death was caused by gross negligence or by malicious, willful, wanton or reckless conduct. See wrongful death claims in Massachusetts and when Massachusetts allows punitive damages.
Where the case is filed depends on where the parties live. M.G.L. c. 223, sec. 1 provides that an injury action is brought “in the county where one of them lives or has his usual place of business.” A crash in Chicopee does not by itself put the case in Hampden County. The western Massachusetts venue guide lists 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.
What to Do After a Crash on Interstate 391
- Get out of the travel lanes if the vehicle moves. Median barrier and guardrail strikes are nearly a quarter of this road’s crashes, and a car stopped against a barrier sits in or beside a live lane.
- Call 911. The State Police wrote 97 percent of the reports on this road; Holyoke police wrote some in Holyoke. Get the report number before the officer leaves.
- 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.
- Photograph the scene, the vehicles, and the nearest mile marker or exit sign. Only about a quarter of this road’s crash reports carry a mile marker, so your own photos may be the clearest record of where it happened.
- Note the lane and what the other driver was doing. In a rear-end or lane-change crash, which car moved and when decides fault under c. 231, sec. 85.
- Get the names of witnesses, including anyone who stopped.
- 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 damage over $1,000 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.
- Notify your own insurer promptly, and do not give a recorded statement to another driver’s insurer before you understand the claim.
What These Numbers Do Not Show
- Risk per mile or per trip. The records count crashes, not traffic. Nothing here says a driver is more likely to crash on Interstate 391 than on another road.
- A fatal rate worth ranking. Four fatal crashes in three years is too few to rank.
- Ramps and interchanges. The 58 crashes on ramps named for Interstate 391 are left out, including the split from Interstate 91.
- Cause or speed. The records say what was struck, not why or how fast. They do not explain the higher injury share or the fall in crashes after 2022.
- Anything after 2024. These are the three most recent complete years in the open data.
Key terms
- 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 median barrier, a guardrail or a pole.
- First harmful event: the first thing a vehicle struck in a crash, as the officer recorded it.
- Interstate class: every crash MassDOT places on an Interstate highway in Massachusetts, used here for comparison.
- Road inventory name: the street name MassDOT attaches to a crash record when it maps the location.
- Personal injury protection (PIP): the part of a Massachusetts auto policy that pays medical bills and lost wages up to at least $8,000 for each person, whoever caused the crash.
For the wider picture, see the Hampden County crash data, the western Massachusetts crash data and the Massachusetts Turnpike crash data. If you live nearby, see car accident help in Chicopee, in Holyoke or in Springfield, and every town’s numbers are in the Massachusetts crash report.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How many crashes happen on Interstate 391 in Massachusetts?
A: MassDOT records show 392 crashes on Interstate 391 from 2022 through 2024: 153, 141 and 98 by year. Four were fatal and 138 involved a non-fatal injury. The 58 crashes on ramps over the same period are not included.
Q: Is Interstate 391 more dangerous than other Massachusetts highways?
A: The records cannot say that, because they count crashes and not traffic. What they show is that a crash on Interstate 391 involved an injury 35.2 percent of the time, against 23.1 percent on all Interstates, and that the gap appears in rear-end, single vehicle and barrier crashes alike.
Q: Which town has the most Interstate 391 crashes?
A: Chicopee, with 347 of the 392, including all four fatal crashes. Holyoke recorded 43 and Springfield 2.
Q: Why is Interstate 391 missing from Chicopee’s list of high-crash roads?
A: Town road lists are built from the typed roadway field, and State Police reports on highways often leave it blank. Counted by the mapped road name, Interstate 391 had 86 crashes in Chicopee in 2024, which would rank second in the city behind Memorial Drive.
Q: Did crashes on Interstate 391 go down?
A: Yes, from 153 in 2022 to 98 in 2024, a fall of more than a third, while statewide crashes stayed about level. The records do not explain why, and the injury share rose to 40.8 percent in 2024.
Q: Which court hears a case from an Interstate 391 crash?
A: Under M.G.L. c. 223, sec. 1, an injury action is brought 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.
Q: How long do I have to bring a claim after a crash on Interstate 391?
A: An action for personal injuries must be commenced within three years after the cause of action accrues under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2A. A claim for PIP benefits must be presented to the insurer as soon as practicable and within two years of the accident under c. 90, sec. 34M.
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 case, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS.
Talking to a Lawyer
Most crashes on Interstate 391 are rear-end, lane-change or barrier crashes, and more than a third of them hurt someone, so the questions afterward are usually about fault between two drivers and whether an injury clears the threshold for pain and suffering. If you were hurt, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is free.
This article is general legal information, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Massachusetts law is fact-specific; telephone Jim Glaser Law about your particular situation. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes. Attorney advertising under Mass. R. Prof. C. 7.1 to 7.5. Responsible attorney: Jim Glaser, admitted in MA only, of counsel to Keches Law. Principal office: 77 Pond St., Sharon, MA. Most cases referred to other jurisdictionally licensed lawyers for principal liability.