How Many Crashes Happen on Interstate 395 in Massachusetts?

From 2022 through 2024, MassDOT crash records place 362 crashes on Interstate 395 in Massachusetts, 5 of them fatal and 100 with a non-fatal injury. The highway runs through only three towns, Webster, Oxford and Auburn, and its crashes look like those on a rural highway: six in ten involve one vehicle, a third happen in the dark on unlighted road, and one in six begins with a deer. What sets it apart is the outcome. The northern stretch of Interstate 91 has the same kind of crashes, yet a crash on Interstate 395 is about half again as likely to injure someone, and the road recorded five fatal crashes where its class of road would predict about one or two.

If you were hurt in a crash on Interstate 395 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: a guardrail, a tree, a deer. 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 the state, 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 395 Runs

Interstate 395 enters Massachusetts from Connecticut in Webster, runs north through Oxford, and ends in Auburn, where it meets Interstate 290 and the Massachusetts Turnpike. All three towns are in Worcester County. The road inventory carries it under a single name, Interstate 395, which makes it one of the simpler roads to count.

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 leave the typed roadway field blank.

Three checks were run before any number was used:

1. The name was checked against the mile markers. Every crash the police mile-marked to Interstate 395 carries the inventory name Interstate 395, apart from one 2024 record with no name attached.
2. Ramps were left out. Crashes on ramps carry ramp names in the inventory. Eighty were on ramps named for Interstate 395 over the three years (33, 26 and 21), and none of them is in the totals below.
3. The totals were reconciled. The three town counts add up exactly to the road total in each year: 119 in 2022, 120 in 2023 and 123 in 2024.

The Three-Year Record

Measure	Interstate 395	All Interstate crashes	All Massachusetts crashes
Crashes, 2022 to 2024	362	41,260	405,243
Fatal crashes	5	156	1,087
Fatal crashes per 1,000 crashes	13.81	3.78	2.68
Crashes with a non-fatal injury	100	9,525	92,761
Injury share	27.62%	23.09%	22.89%

By year, the road had 119, 120 and 123 crashes, and 34, 32 and 34 injury crashes. The count is steady.

The kind of crash differs from the Interstate class by a wide margin:

• Single vehicle crashes are 60.5 percent (219 of 362), against 29.8 percent on all Interstates.
• Rear-end crashes are 18.8 percent (68), against 44.5 percent.
• 33.98 percent happened in the dark on unlighted road (123), against 15.0 percent.
• A deer was the first thing struck in 16.9 percent (61), against 4.1 percent.
• A tree was the first thing struck in 20 crashes, 5.5 percent, against 1.5 percent.
• A large truck or bus was involved in 12 crashes (3.3 percent marked federally reportable), against 6.1 percent.

One caution belongs with that list. A road with little congestion has few rear-end crashes, and when rear-end crashes are few, every other kind makes up a larger share. Part of the high single vehicle share is that. The 219 single vehicle crashes are still a count, not a share: about 73 a year on a road through three towns.

The State Police wrote 349 of the 362 reports, 96.4 percent, close to the 98.4 percent they wrote across all Interstates. The pattern is not a difference in who filled in the forms.

Same Kind of Crash as Northern I-91, More People Hurt

The closest comparison in Massachusetts is the northern section of Interstate 91, through seven Hampshire and Franklin County communities. It is also a rural Interstate, and its crashes have the same shape.

Measure	Interstate 395	Interstate 91, northern section
Crashes, 2022 to 2024	362	704
Single vehicle	60.5%	60.9%
Dark, road not lighted	34.0%	28.6%
First event an animal	18.5% (67)	26.6%
Injury crashes	100	127
Injury share	27.62%	18.04%
Injury share with animal strikes removed	31.19% (92 of 295)	22.05%
Fatal crashes	5	3

The obvious explanation was tested and does not hold. Deer strikes rarely hurt anyone: only 8 of the 61 on Interstate 395 involved an injury. A road with more of them should show a lower injury share. But take every animal strike off both roads and the gap does not close. It stays above nine points: 31.2 percent on Interstate 395 against 22.1 percent on northern I-91. With 100 and 127 injury crashes behind the two figures, a gap that size does not come from a handful of crashes going one way.

The records do not say why a crash on Interstate 395 hurts someone more often. They record what was struck, not how fast, and they carry no traffic counts. This page reports the difference and does not supply a cause. Against all Interstates the gap is smaller, 27.6 percent against 23.1 percent, and on its own that would be a modest difference.

The Five Fatal Crashes

Five fatal crashes in three years is a small number, and no rate built on it should be ranked against other roads. It is still more than three times what the Interstate class would predict: at 3.78 fatal crashes per 1,000, a road with 362 crashes would be expected to have about 1.4. The five reports, read one at a time, record seven deaths:

When	Town	What the report records
June 2022, late morning	Webster	One vehicle, daylight, clear and dry; first event a collision with an animal other than a deer; two deaths
December 2022, 5 p.m. hour	Auburn	One vehicle, dark and unlighted, dry; struck a tree
September 2023, 10 p.m. hour	Oxford	One vehicle, dark and unlighted, rain; struck a tree
December 2023, 10 p.m. hour	Webster	Head-on between two vehicles, dark and unlighted, fog; one driver recorded as on the wrong side or going the wrong way; two deaths
November 2024, 11 p.m. hour	Webster	One vehicle, dark and unlighted, rain; struck a tree; driver recorded as over-correcting

Four of the five happened at night on an unlighted stretch, and three began when a single vehicle left the road and hit a tree. That is the same shape as the road’s crashes overall, at its most severe. The reports say what happened, not why, and this page adds nothing to them.

Town by Town

Community	I-395 crashes	Fatal	Injury	Injury share	All crashes in the town	I-395 share
Oxford	193	1	51	26.4%	1,063	18.2%
Webster	101	3	37	36.6%	1,035	9.8%
Auburn	68	1	12	17.6%	2,247	3.0%

Oxford holds more than half the road’s crashes, and the darkest and most deer-prone stretch of it. Of its 193 crashes, 40 began with a deer (20.7 percent) and 78 happened in the dark on unlighted road (40.4 percent). Nearly one crash in five recorded anywhere in Oxford over the three years was on Interstate 395.

Webster has the fewest crashes of the three but the most serious record. Three of the road’s five fatal crashes were there, and 37 of its 101 crashes involved an injury, a share of 36.6 percent, though that rests on 37 crashes. Webster recorded seven fatal crashes on all its roads in the three years, and three of them were on Interstate 395. A ditch was the first thing struck in 11 Webster crashes.

Auburn is the busiest town of the three, with 2,247 crashes on all roads, and only 68 of them were on Interstate 395. Its injury share on the highway, 17.6 percent, is the lowest of the three, and 11 of its 68, or 16.2 percent, were recorded in the dark on a lighted roadway, against about 6 percent in Oxford and in Webster.

Town pages with every road’s numbers are at Oxford, Webster and Auburn in the Massachusetts crash report.

When the deer are on the road

The 61 deer crashes on Interstate 395 cluster in two seasons. October and November hold 31 of them, about half. May and June hold 19. January, February and March recorded none. The statewide pattern is on the Massachusetts deer crash data page.

Answer Capsule

MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024 place 362 crashes on Interstate 395 in Massachusetts, counted on the road inventory name with ramps excluded: 119, 120 and 123 by year, in Oxford (193), Webster (101) and Auburn (68). Five were fatal, about three times the 1.4 the Interstate-class rate would predict, and the reports record seven deaths; four of the five fatal crashes were at night on unlighted road and three were single vehicles striking a tree. One hundred crashes, 27.6 percent, involved a non-fatal injury, against 23.1 percent for all Interstates. Single vehicle crashes are 60.5 percent of the total against 29.8 percent statewide on Interstates, 34.0 percent happened in the dark on unlighted road, and 16.9 percent began with a deer, with deer crashes peaking in October and November. The road’s crashes have the same shape as northern Interstate 91, but its injury share is 9.6 points higher (27.6 against 18.0 percent), and the gap remains with animal strikes removed (31.2 against 22.1 percent). 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 395

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.” On a road where six crashes in ten involve one vehicle, that is the coverage most people will use, and a passenger in a car that left the road has it. See whether Massachusetts is a no-fault state.

A passenger may also have a claim against the driver. In a single vehicle crash there is no other driver to blame, but there may be a driver of your own car whose negligence caused it. 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. See how partial fault works.

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 exceed $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.

The rules change at the Connecticut line. Interstate 395 continues south past Webster. The Massachusetts trade of PIP for the right to sue applies to “an accident occurring within this commonwealth,” and c. 90, sec. 34M says “no such exemption from tort liability shall apply in the case of an accident occurring outside the commonwealth.” The same section holds back PIP payments on a Massachusetts policy where the injured person sues in tort over that out-of-state crash, until a settlement or judgment. See out-of-state drivers and border towns.

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 Connecticut driver hit in Oxford by a Webster driver would look to Worcester County because the Webster driver lives there. If neither party lives in Massachusetts, the action may be brought in any county. The Worcester County 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. For a claim after a death, see wrongful death claims in Massachusetts.

What to Do After a Crash on Interstate 395

1. Get out of the travel lanes if the vehicle moves. A third of the road’s crashes happen in the dark with no street lighting, and a stopped car is hard to see at highway speed.
2. Call 911. The State Police wrote more than nine reports in ten on this road. Get 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 nearest mile marker or exit sign. On a rural stretch the mile marker is often the only fixed reference.
5. If a deer or another animal was involved, say so in the report and to your insurer. If you swerved and hit a guardrail, a tree or another car instead, say that too, because the record will otherwise show only what the car struck.
6. Get the names of witnesses, including anyone who stopped. At night on an unlighted road, a passing driver may be the only one who saw what happened.
7. 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.
8. 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 395 than on another road.
• A fatal rate worth ranking. Five fatal crashes in three years is too few to rank.
• Ramps and interchanges. The 80 crashes on ramps named for Interstate 395 are left out, so the Auburn interchange in particular is undercounted.
• Cause or speed. The first harmful event says what the vehicle hit, not why or how fast. The records do not explain the higher injury share.
• Connecticut. The data ends at the state line.
• Anything after 2024. These are the three most recent complete years in the open data.

For the wider picture, see the Worcester County crash data and the night crash data. For the roads Interstate 395 meets in Auburn, see Interstate 290 and Interstate 90, and for another road counted the same way in the county, Route 146. If you live in Worcester, see car accident help in Worcester.

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 tree, a guardrail or an animal.
• 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.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How many crashes happen on Interstate 395 in Massachusetts?

A: MassDOT records show 362 crashes on Interstate 395 from 2022 through 2024: 119, 120 and 123 by year. Five were fatal and 100 involved a non-fatal injury. The 80 crashes on ramps over the same period are not included.

Q: Is Interstate 395 more dangerous than other Massachusetts highways?

A: The records cannot say that, because they count crashes and not traffic. What they do show is that a crash on Interstate 395 involved an injury 27.6 percent of the time, against 23.1 percent on all Interstates and 18.0 percent on the similar northern stretch of Interstate 91, and that the road had five fatal crashes where its class would predict about 1.4. Five is too few to rank.

Q: Which town has the most Interstate 395 crashes?

A: Oxford, with 193 of the 362, followed by Webster with 101 and Auburn with 68. In Oxford the highway accounts for 18.2 percent of every crash recorded in the town.

Q: Why are so many Interstate 395 crashes single vehicle crashes?

A: The records show what was struck, not why. Sixty percent of the road’s crashes involved one vehicle, often at night on an unlighted stretch, and the most common objects were deer, guardrails and trees. Part of the high share is that rear-end crashes, which dominate congested highways, are only 18.8 percent here.

Q: When are deer crashes most common on Interstate 395?

A: October and November, which together hold 31 of the road’s 61 deer crashes. May and June hold 19 more. None were recorded in January, February or March.

Q: What if my crash was on Interstate 395 just over the line in Connecticut?

A: The Massachusetts rule that shields the other driver from suit for PIP-covered losses does not apply: c. 90, sec. 34M says the exemption does not apply to an accident outside the Commonwealth, and it holds back PIP payments where the injured person sues in tort over that crash until a settlement or judgment. Which state’s law governs the rest of the claim is a question to raise with a lawyer early.

Q: Which court hears a case from an Interstate 395 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. If neither party lives in Massachusetts, the action may be brought in any county.

Q: How long do I have to bring a claim after a crash on Interstate 395?

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 395 involve one car on a dark road, which means the questions after one are often not about another driver at all: whose PIP pays, whether the driver of your own car was at fault, and whether the crash crossed into Connecticut. 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.