How Many Crashes Happen on Interstate 91 in Massachusetts?

From 2022 through 2024, MassDOT crash records place 2,570 crashes on Interstate 91 in Massachusetts, 8 of them fatal and 645 with a non-fatal injury. Taken as a whole the road looks ordinary: 25.1 percent of its crashes hurt someone, against 23.1 percent for every crash on an Interstate-class road in the state. The whole-road figure hides the real story, which is that Interstate 91 is two different roads. In Hampden County it is a city highway where cars hit each other and 27.8 percent of crashes involve an injury. North of the county line, six crashes in ten involve one vehicle alone, and more than a quarter are a collision with an animal.

If you were hurt in a crash on Interstate 91 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 deer, a ditch. An animal strike is a crash whose first harmful event was a collision with a deer or another animal. The Interstate class is every crash MassDOT places on a road it classifies as an Interstate, the benchmark used on this page.

Where Interstate 91 Runs

Interstate 91 enters Massachusetts from Enfield, Connecticut, follows the Connecticut River north, and leaves for Vermont at Bernardston. The crash records place it in twelve communities, in three counties. Roughly south to north:

1. Longmeadow, the first miles north of the Connecticut line.
2. Springfield, where the highway runs along the river past downtown.
3. Chicopee and West Springfield, on either side of the river crossing, where Interstate 391 and the Massachusetts Turnpike meet the road.
4. Holyoke, the last Hampden County community.
5. Easthampton, Northampton and Hatfield, in Hampshire County.
6. Whately, Deerfield, Greenfield and Bernardston, in Franklin County, ending at the Vermont line.

By town sums, 1,866 of the 2,570 crashes were in the five Hampden County communities, 329 in Hampshire County and 375 in Franklin County. This page calls the Hampden County stretch the southern section and the Hampshire and Franklin stretch the northern section.

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 91”, 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, 406 of the 418 crashes mile-marked to Interstate 91 carried the inventory name, and in 2023 it was 475 of 486. The others were on ramps, on the Springfield Expressway or had no name attached, and they are not included in the figures here. The town totals in each year add up exactly to the road total. The State Police wrote 2,557 of the 2,570 reports, 99.5 percent.

The Three-Year Record

Measure	Interstate 91	All Interstate-class crashes	All Massachusetts crashes
Crashes, 2022 to 2024	2,570	41,260	405,242
Fatal crashes	8	156	1,087
Fatal crashes per 1,000 crashes	3.11	3.78	2.68
Crashes with a non-fatal injury	645	9,525	92,761
Injury share	25.10%	23.09%	22.89%

By year, Interstate 91 had 860 crashes in 2022, 899 in 2023 and 811 in 2024. Fatal crashes were 1, 3 and 4. Eight fatal crashes is a small number, and a rate built on it moves a long way if one year has two more or two fewer. Nothing in these records supports calling Interstate 91 more or less deadly per crash than the average Interstate.

Two roads under one number

Split the road at the Hampden County line and the averages come apart.

Measure	Southern section (5 Hampden County communities)	Northern section (7 Hampshire and Franklin communities)	All Interstate-class crashes
Crashes	1,866	704	41,260
Fatal crashes	5	3	156
Injury share	27.76%	18.04%	23.09%
Single vehicle crashes	31.03%	60.94%	29.84%
Rear-end crashes	35.10%	19.18%	44.54%
Animal strikes	3.54%	26.56%	4.57%
In the dark on unlighted road	5.36%	28.55%	15.00%

The southern section carries almost three quarters of the crashes. Its crashes are between vehicles, they happen in daylight or under streetlights, and more of them hurt someone than on Interstates generally. The northern section has fewer crashes, and most of them are one vehicle meeting a guardrail, a ditch or an animal on a dark road.

The gap in injuries is partly the animals. A deer strike usually damages the car and leaves the people unhurt, so a road with many of them shows a lower injury share. That explanation was tested. Animal strikes on the whole road produced 16 injury crashes, 13 in the northern section and 3 in the southern. Leave every animal strike out and the northern section’s injury share is 22.05 percent (114 of 517 crashes) and the southern section’s is 28.61 percent (515 of 1,800). Animals account for roughly three points of a gap of almost ten. The rest is still there with every animal strike removed.

A second explanation is a recording habit: injury is a field an officer fills in, and departments differ. Here both sections were reported by the same agency. The State Police’s other crashes in Hampden, Hampshire and Franklin counties, away from Interstate 91, show an injury share of 24.44 percent (1,154 of 4,721), close to the road’s overall figure.

What kind of crashes

• Single vehicle crashes: 1,008, or 39.22 percent. On Interstate-class roads statewide the figure is 29.84 percent. Rear-end crashes are 790 (30.74 percent) against 44.54 percent for the class, and same-direction sideswipes are 637 (24.79 percent) against 19.19 percent.
• Guardrails: 336 crashes, or 13.07 percent, against 9.24 percent for the Interstate class. A guardrail was the first thing struck in three of the eight fatal crashes.
• Animals: 253 crashes, or 9.84 percent. Deer were 203 of them and other animals 50. The Interstate-class share for all animal strikes is 4.57 percent.
• Large trucks and buses. One hundred twenty-nine crashes (5.02 percent) were federally reportable commercial vehicle crashes, against 6.10 percent for the Interstate class.
• Winter surfaces. Snow, ice or slush was recorded on 134 crashes, 5.21 percent, almost the same as the Interstate class at 5.38 percent.

Four of the eight fatal crashes were single vehicle crashes. The first harmful event in the fatal crashes was a guardrail in three, another vehicle in traffic in three, an embankment in one and a pedestrian in one. Five happened in daylight and six on a dry road.

Deer, and why June leads

Interstate 91 recorded 203 deer crashes in three years, 7.90 percent of its total, against 4.06 percent for the Interstate class and 2.81 percent for all Massachusetts crashes. Fourteen involved an injury and none was fatal.

The calendar is different from the usual one. Statewide, and on Interstate 195 on the South Coast, November is the peak month for deer. On Interstate 91, June had the most with 48, followed by November (32), May and December (25 each), October (23) and July (19). May through July together account for 92 of the 203, more than October through December (80). The single busiest hour was 8 to 9 p.m., with 21.

Hatfield recorded the most deer strikes (39), followed by Holyoke (35), Greenfield (30) and Deerfield (29). Holyoke is the exception to the north and south split. It is a Hampden County city, but its stretch reads more like the northern road, with 37.5 percent single vehicle crashes and 66 crashes on unlighted road.

When they happen

Of the road’s 2,570 crashes, 301 (11.71 percent) happened in the dark on a roadway with no lighting, below the 15.00 percent for the Interstate class, and 501 (19.49 percent) in the dark on a lighted roadway, above the class figure of 15.55 percent. That is the southern section’s weight: Springfield’s stretch is lit, and Springfield recorded only 11 crashes on unlighted road. In the northern section 201 of 704 crashes were on unlighted road.

The evening commute is the peak. The road recorded 220 crashes between 5 and 6 p.m. and 594 (23.11 percent) between 3 and 6 p.m. The overnight hours from midnight to 4:59 a.m. hold 213 crashes, 8.29 percent, against 6.41 percent for all Massachusetts crashes. In Longmeadow the overnight share is 14.34 percent (39 of 272).

By month, November (247) and December (237) are highest and May (185) and April (187) lowest.

Town by Town

Community (roughly south to north)	Interstate 91 crashes	With injury	Fatal	Community’s total crashes	Interstate 91 share of that total
Longmeadow	272	80	1	939	29.0%
Springfield	830	239	3	11,109	7.5%
Chicopee	90	31	0	5,238	1.7%
West Springfield	239	67	1	3,277	7.3%
Holyoke	435	101	0	4,245	10.2%
Easthampton	18	5	0	870	2.1%
Northampton	224	35	1	1,602	14.0%
Hatfield	87	10	1	123	70.7%
Whately	86	13	0	205	42.0%
Deerfield	93	20	0	356	26.1%
Greenfield	136	29	0	1,313	10.4%
Bernardston	60	15	1	129	46.5%

Four things in the table are worth reading closely.

In Hatfield the highway is the crash record. Eighty-seven of the 123 crashes recorded anywhere in Hatfield over three years were on Interstate 91, 70.7 percent. Forty-nine of those 87 were animal strikes, 39 of them deer. Put together, two of every five crashes recorded in the town of Hatfield were a vehicle hitting an animal on the Interstate. Bernardston (46.5 percent) and Whately (42.0 percent) are close behind in how much of the town’s record the highway makes up. One of Hatfield’s two fatal crashes and one of Bernardston’s two were on the highway.

Springfield has a third of the road’s crashes and they are city crashes. Its 830 crashes are 32.3 percent of the total. Rear-end crashes are 339 of them (40.8 percent), same-direction sideswipes 262 (31.6 percent) and single vehicle crashes only 191 (23.0 percent). The posted limit recorded on the report was 55 or lower on 765 of the 830, and 65 on 36. The injury share is 28.8 percent. Three of the city’s 44 fatal crashes in the period were on the highway. For the fuller picture, see the Springfield crash report and the page on Springfield auto accidents.

Longmeadow’s short stretch is nearly three in ten of the town’s crashes. The town recorded 272 highway crashes (89, 89 and 94 by year), 29.0 percent of its total, with an injury share of 29.4 percent and the heaviest overnight share on the road. One of the town’s two fatal crashes was on the highway. See the Longmeadow crash report.

Northampton’s injury share is low, and it is not all deer. Thirty-five of 224 crashes (15.6 percent) involved an injury, and the city’s stretch recorded only 12 deer strikes. Ninety-seven of the 224 were single vehicle crashes, and a guardrail was the first thing struck in 42 of the 224. The records do not say why fewer of them hurt anyone. Town reports for Northampton, Holyoke, West Springfield, Greenfield and Chicopee carry the local numbers, and Chicopee auto accidents covers the claim side there.

The count by year

The southern section recorded 641 crashes in 2022, 645 in 2023 and 580 in 2024. Most of that fall is Springfield, which went from 293 in each of the first two years to 244. The northern section recorded 219, 254 and 231. The records carry no traffic volume and do not say why Springfield’s count fell. It is reported here as a pattern in the count and nothing more.

Answer Capsule

MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024 place 2,570 crashes on Interstate 91 in Massachusetts, from Longmeadow to Bernardston: 860, 899 and 811 by year. Eight were fatal (3.11 per 1,000 crashes, against 3.78 for all Interstate-class crashes), and 645, or 25.1 percent, involved a non-fatal injury, close to the 23.1 percent for the Interstate class. The road divides at the Hampden County line. The five Hampden County communities recorded 1,866 crashes with a 27.8 percent injury share and mostly vehicle-to-vehicle collisions. The seven Hampshire and Franklin County communities recorded 704, of which 60.9 percent were single vehicle crashes, 26.6 percent animal strikes and 28.6 percent in the dark on unlighted road. Springfield (830) recorded the most crashes. In Hatfield the highway is 70.7 percent of every crash recorded in the town. 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.

The Law That Applies to a Crash on Interstate 91

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 four in ten 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. In the chain-reaction and lane-change crashes that make up most of the Springfield record, more than one driver often carries a 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 Northampton resident hit in Longmeadow by a driver from Worcester has a choice between Hampshire County and Worcester County, and the fact that the crash was in Hampden County decides nothing by itself. If neither party lives in Massachusetts, which is common on a highway that runs from Connecticut to Vermont, the statute allows the action in any county. The western Massachusetts venue guide lists the courts, and crashes with out-of-state drivers in border towns covers the insurance side.

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 336 crashes began with a guardrail, the railing exception is the part people do not expect: the statute excludes the absence of a railing, and it says nothing that makes the Commonwealth liable for a deer.

What to Do After a Crash on Interstate 91

1. Get out of the travel lanes if the vehicle moves. North of Holyoke more than a quarter of crashes happen on unlighted road, and a stopped car is hard to see.
2. Call 911. The State Police wrote 99.5 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 an animal 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. If you swerved and hit a guardrail or another car instead, say that too, because the record will otherwise show only what the car struck. 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. The southern section has more crashes because it carries city traffic, and nothing here ranks any stretch of Interstate 91 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 Turnpike interchange in West Springfield, the Interstate 391 split in Chicopee and the Route 141 ramp in Holyoke each recorded ramp crashes that are not in these totals.
• Which animal. The records separate deer (203) from other animals (50) and do not name the other animals.
• Cause. The first harmful event says what the vehicle hit, not why. A guardrail strike can follow from speed, fatigue, impairment, an animal that was avoided or another vehicle that did not stop.
• Connecticut and Vermont. The highway continues in both directions. MassDOT records stop at the state lines.
• Anything after 2024. These are the three most recent complete years in the open data.

For the wider picture, see the Hampden County crash data and the western Massachusetts crash data. For other highways counted the same way, see Interstate 195, Interstate 95 and Route 3, and for the road that crosses this one, the Massachusetts Turnpike. 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, animal or ditch.
• Animal strike: a crash whose first harmful event was a collision with a deer or another animal.
• 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 91 in Massachusetts each year?

A: MassDOT records show 860 in 2022, 899 in 2023 and 811 in 2024, a total of 2,570. Eight were fatal and 645 involved a non-fatal injury. Ramp crashes are not included.

Q: Is Interstate 91 more dangerous than other Massachusetts highways?

A: The records cannot answer that, because they do not include traffic volume. Per recorded crash the road is close to average: 25.1 percent involved an injury, against 23.1 percent for all Interstate-class crashes, and 3.11 per 1,000 were fatal, against 3.78. The fatal figure rests on eight crashes.

Q: Which community has the most crashes on Interstate 91?

A: Springfield, with 830 from 2022 through 2024, followed by Holyoke (435), Longmeadow (272), West Springfield (239) and Northampton (224). Measured against each community’s own total, the highway matters most in Hatfield, where it is 70.7 percent of all recorded crashes.

Q: How common are deer crashes on Interstate 91?

A: There were 203 in three years, 7.9 percent of all crashes on the road, against 2.8 percent statewide. June had the most (48), ahead of November (32). Hatfield (39), Holyoke (35), Greenfield (30) and Deerfield (29) recorded the most. Fourteen involved an injury and none was fatal.

Q: Why are crashes north of Holyoke so different from crashes in Springfield?

A: The records show what, not why. In the five Hampden County communities 35.1 percent of crashes were rear-end and 3.5 percent were animal strikes. In the seven Hampshire and Franklin County communities 60.9 percent were single vehicle crashes, 26.6 percent were animal strikes and 28.6 percent happened in the dark on unlighted road.

Q: If I was hurt on Interstate 91 in Springfield, do I have to sue in Hampden 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 91 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 91?

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 91 can mean three cars and two insurers in Springfield, or one car, a guardrail and a State Police report number in Whately. 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.