Massachusetts Motorcycle Accidents and the Injury Threshold

A Massachusetts motorcycle claim is not a car claim with a different vehicle on the police report. Almost everything that limits what a car occupant can collect runs through personal injury protection, and a Massachusetts motorcycle policy does not provide personal injury protection to the person on the motorcycle. That single absence moves two things in your favor. It lifts the two thousand dollar medical-bill requirement that M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 6D otherwise puts in front of a claim for pain and suffering, which is what the Supreme Judicial Court decided in Murphy v. Bohn, 377 Mass. 544 (1979). And it removes the tort exemption in M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34M that normally shields the at-fault driver from the first layer of your medical bills, because that exemption runs only to the extent personal injury protection benefits are payable to you. The same absence takes something away: no PIP means no first-layer medical coverage and no PIP wage benefit while the claim is pending, so your health plan is the payer from the first dollar. The advantage is also narrower than it sounds. The Appeals Court held in Prouty v. Brown, 22 Mass. App. Ct. 992 (1986), that Murphy turns on having contributed to the Massachusetts no-fault system rather than on being a motorcyclist, so a rider whose bike is insured outside Massachusetts can find the threshold applies after all. To talk through a specific crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the first telephone consultation is free.

What Actually Changes When the Vehicle Is a Motorcycle

The practical difference shows up the first time an adjuster explains why your claim is worth less than you thought. For a car occupant that explanation usually starts with the threshold: until the medical bills clear two thousand dollars, or the injury falls into one of five listed categories, there is no claim for what the injury felt like. Applied to a motorcyclist, that explanation is generally wrong, and it has been wrong since 1979.

The reason has nothing to do with motorcycles being more dangerous, and nothing to do with sympathy for riders. It is arithmetic inside the no-fault statute. The threshold and the tort exemption were the price Massachusetts drivers paid in exchange for personal injury protection. A motorcyclist pays the price and does not get the benefit, and the courts declined to enforce only the half that hurts.

Answer Capsule

A Massachusetts motorcycle policy does not provide personal injury protection to the rider or a passenger on the motorcycle, although it does provide PIP to pedestrians the motorcycle strikes. Because the rider funds the no-fault system without access to its central benefit, the Supreme Judicial Court held in Murphy v. Bohn, 377 Mass. 544 (1979), that the pain and suffering restriction in M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 6D does not limit a Massachusetts motorcyclist’s recovery. The tort exemption in M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34M applies only “to the extent that the injured party is” entitled to PIP benefits, so it gives the at-fault driver no protection against a rider who has no PIP entitlement, and the medical expenses a car occupant would run through their own PIP are instead recoverable from the at-fault driver. The trade is that nothing pays those expenses while the claim is pending, so a health plan is the payer from the first dollar. The rule is not automatic for every rider: under Prouty v. Brown, 22 Mass. App. Ct. 992 (1986), the exemption from the threshold depends on having contributed to the Massachusetts no-fault system, and a rider insured in another state may be held to section 6D. Helmets are required for every rider and passenger under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 7, and under M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 85 a plaintiff’s violation of a criminal statute, ordinance or regulation that contributed to the injury is evidence of negligence rather than a bar to recovery. Suit must be brought within three years under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2A. Call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the first telephone consultation is free.

A Motorcycle Is a Motor Vehicle, Which Is Where the Confusion Starts

Read the statutes cold and you would conclude the threshold applies to riders. M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 1 defines motor vehicles as “all vehicles constructed and designed for propulsion by power other than muscular power,” subject to exclusions that do not mention motorcycles, and the same section defines a motorcycle as “any motor vehicle having a seat or saddle for the use of the rider and designed to travel on not more than three wheels in contact with the ground.” A motorcycle is a species of motor vehicle, not an alternative to one.

That definition carries into the no-fault sections. M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34A, which supplies the definitions for sections 34A through 34N, says only that motor vehicle “shall, in addition to the meaning prescribed by section one, include a trailer, as defined by said section one.” Nothing carves motorcycles out. Section 6D speaks of tort actions “arising out of the ownership, operation, maintenance or use of a motor vehicle within this commonwealth by the defendant,” which on its face covers a crash between a car and a motorcycle.

So the rider’s advantage does not come from the statutory text. It comes from what sits underneath the text, which is an insurance scheme that never delivered PIP to riders in the first place.

The Coverage That Is Not There

Massachusetts motorcycle insurance is governed by a Division of Insurance regulation, 211 CMR 3.00, still carried on the Division’s own regulation index today. Its effect was described by the Supreme Judicial Court in Murphy v. Bohn: under the regulation, “while motorcycle insurance policies must afford” personal injury protection “to pedestrians struck by motorcycles, no insurance company is required to provide” no-fault protection “for owners, operators or guests of motorcycles who suffer bodily injury while operating or riding as a guest upon such vehicles.”

The court put the consequence plainly. A Massachusetts motorcycle owner, it wrote, “is required to carry insurance which provides P.I.P. coverage for the benefit of eligible parties not traveling on the motorcycle (e.g., pedestrians injured in an accident involving a motorcycle), regardless of fault, while those on the motorcycle are excluded from such coverage.”

The exclusion is not something a rider can route around with a second policy. Murphy quotes the regulation as also providing that a person who “suffers bodily injury while an operator or a guest on a motorcycle” shall not “be entitled to recover his damages for such injury through the so-called assigned claims plan or under the Personal Injury Protection coverage of any insurance policy covering any other motor vehicle owned by such person or any member of his household.” The car in the driveway does not help, and neither does a spouse’s policy.

It is worth being concrete about what a car occupant has that a rider does not. Under section 34A, PIP pays reasonable medical expenses incurred within two years of the accident and a portion of lost wages, “to the amount or limit of at least eight thousand dollars on account of injury to or death of any one person,” without any argument about fault. Section 34M makes those benefits “due and payable as loss accrues” and gives an unpaid claimant a contract action, with costs and reasonable attorney fees assessed against the insurer, when benefits sit unpaid for more than thirty days. None of that machinery runs for an injured rider. See the PIP overview for how it works when it does apply.

Murphy v. Bohn and the Threshold

Section 6D is short and it is the whole obstacle. A plaintiff may recover for pain and suffering “only if the reasonable and necessary expenses incurred in treating such injury, sickness or disease” in the listed categories “are determined to be in excess of two thousand dollars,” unless the injury “(1) causes death, or (2) consists in whole or in part of loss of a body member, or (3) consists in whole or in part of permanent and serious disfigurement,” or produces a listed loss of sight or hearing, or “consists of a fracture.”

Murphy v. Bohn framed the question narrowly and answered it in the first paragraph: “Can an operator of a motorcycle, duly registered in this Commonwealth, as a matter of law, recover damages in tort for conscious pain and suffering, when he has neither incurred $500 in medical expenses nor suffered any of the five types of injury specified in G. L. c. 231, sec. 6D? We hold that he can.”

The court’s reasoning was about the bargain, not about motorcycles. It had already said in earlier no-fault cases that the loss of tort rights was acceptable because PIP benefits were given in exchange. A rider gets no such exchange. The holding turns on that mismatch: “Given this conjunction of his contribution to the no-fault system and his ineligibility to receive its” central benefit, the court held, the rider’s “right to recovery is unimpaired by the pain and suffering exemption set forth in G. L. c. 231, sec. 6D.”

One detail to keep straight. The threshold was five hundred dollars in 1979 and is two thousand dollars now, and Murphy’s question is phrased in the old figure. The change does not touch the reasoning, which turns on whether the plaintiff got anything in return for the restriction, not on where the dollar line sits.

The Trap: Murphy Is About Contribution, Not About Motorcycles

This is the part that decides real cases and almost never appears in general summaries of Massachusetts motorcycle law.

Seven years after Murphy, the Appeals Court took a case with nearly identical facts and came out the other way. In Prouty v. Brown, 22 Mass. App. Ct. 992 (1986), a Connecticut resident was riding a motorcycle in Longmeadow when he was hit by a Massachusetts-registered car driven by a Massachusetts resident. His medical bills were under the threshold and he had no listed injury, exactly like the plaintiff in Murphy. He lost.

The Appeals Court explained why: the Supreme Judicial Court had reached its result in Murphy “not because the accident in that case involved a motorcyclist plaintiff but because under a Massachusetts regulation, promulgated pursuant to St. 1970, c. 744, sec. 4, the plaintiff had contributed to a no-fault system which did not allow him recourse to its benefits.” Connecticut’s no-fault provisions did not apply to motorcycles at all, so the Prouty plaintiff had paid nothing into any system and had nothing to be denied. “Nothing in the record indicates that the plaintiff contributed in any way to a no-fault insurance system. He is, therefore, not entitled to damages for pain and suffering.”

The practical reading for a rider: the question is not whether you were on a motorcycle. It is whether your motorcycle was insured in Massachusetts under a policy that funded the no-fault system. A Massachusetts-registered bike puts you inside Murphy. A bike registered and insured elsewhere may put you inside Prouty, where the threshold applies with full force. If you ride into Massachusetts on out-of-state plates, that fact belongs in the first conversation with a lawyer, not the fifth.

Why the At-Fault Driver Loses Their Usual Protection

The second consequence of having no PIP is the one adjusters rarely volunteer, and it works entirely in the rider’s favor.

Section 34M does not exempt at-fault drivers from tort liability in general. It exempts them by reference to your coverage. The statute makes an owner, registrant, operator or occupant “exempt from tort liability for damages because of bodily injury, sickness, disease or death arising out of the ownership, operation, maintenance or use of such motor vehicle to the extent that the injured party is, or would be had he or someone for him not purchased a deductible authorized by this section, entitled to recover under those provisions of a motor vehicle liability policy or bond that provide personal injury protection benefits or from the insurer assigned.”

Read the measuring stick. The exemption extends only so far as the injured party’s PIP entitlement extends. When a car occupant is hurt, the first several thousand dollars of medical expense is not a claim against the other driver at all, because PIP would have paid it. When a motorcyclist is hurt, there is no PIP entitlement to measure against, so there is nothing for the exemption to cover. The medical bills are part of the claim against the at-fault driver from the first dollar.

Two boundaries on the exemption are worth knowing because they cut in the same direction. It does not travel: “No such exemption from tort liability shall apply in the case of an accident occurring outside the commonwealth.” And it is measured by what PIP would have paid rather than what it actually paid, which is why buying a PIP deductible on a car policy does not reopen a claim against an exempt driver.

There is also a drafting artifact in section 34M worth flagging, because it confuses people who go looking. The section’s last paragraph still refers to whether expenses “exceed or do not exceed five hundred dollars, which determination may affect an injured’s person’s rights under section six D of chapter two hundred and thirty-one.” The figure in section 6D itself is two thousand dollars. The cross-reference was not updated with the threshold, and the typo in that clause is the statute’s own.

The Helmet Law, Read Correctly

Massachusetts requires helmets for every rider and every passenger. There is no age-based exemption, and summaries that say adults over eighteen may ride bare-headed are describing a different state.

The requirement sits in M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 7: “Every person operating a motorcycle or riding as a passenger on a motorcycle or in a sidecar attached to a motorcycle shall wear protective head gear conforming with such minimum standards of construction and performance as the registrar may prescribe, and no person operating a motorcycle shall permit any other person to ride as a passenger on such motorcycle or in a sidecar attached to such motorcycle unless such passenger is wearing such protective head gear, except that no protective head gear shall be required if the motorcyclist is participating in a properly permitted public parade and is 18 years of age or older.”

The only carve-out in that sentence is a permitted public parade, and it applies to riders eighteen and over within that parade. Read the two conditions together; the age qualifier does not stand on its own. The same section also requires eye protection where the bike has no windshield: “If a motorcycle is not equipped with a windshield or screen, the operator of such motorcycle shall wear eye glasses, goggles or a protective face shield when operating such vehicle.”

What that means for a claim is a separate question, and the answer is not what insurers imply. The provision they reach for is M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 85, and it is written more narrowly than the argument built on it: “The violation of a criminal statute, ordinance or regulation by a plaintiff which contributed to said injury, death or damage, shall be considered as evidence of negligence of that plaintiff, but the violation of said statute, ordinance or regulation shall not as a matter of law and for that reason alone, serve to bar a plaintiff from recovery.”

Two conditions sit in front of that clause before it does any work. The violation has to be of a criminal statute, ordinance or regulation, and it has to have “contributed to said injury, death or damage,” so a violation that made no difference to the harm establishes nothing. Where the clause does apply, what it produces is evidence for a jury to weigh, and the statute forecloses the rest in its own words: such a violation does not bar recovery as a matter of law and for that reason alone. It does not decide who caused the crash, and it does not end the case. The broader rule in section 85 still governs the outcome: recovery survives “if such negligence was not greater than the total amount of negligence attributable to the person or persons against whom recovery is sought,” with damages reduced in proportion. See the comparative negligence article for how the percentages work.

The other rule insurers reach for is the same-lane passing ban in M.G.L. c. 89, sec. 4A, usually in the form of a driver’s statement that the rider “came up between the cars.” It is read the same narrow way as the helmet rule, and it is covered in is lane splitting legal in Massachusetts.

What a Rider Should Do With This

Find out where the motorcycle was insured. That fact decides whether Murphy or Prouty describes your claim, and it is the first thing worth confirming.

Know the shape of the crash you were in. Massachusetts motorcycle crashes cluster in a narrow set of conditions, mostly daylight, dry pavement and city streets posted at 25 to 35 miles an hour, which matters because those are the facts an insurer usually reaches for when it wants to shift responsibility onto a rider. The three-year MassDOT breakdown is at where most motorcycle accidents happen in Massachusetts.

Read the declarations page rather than assuming what is on it. The absence of PIP is the default, but motorcycle policies vary in what optional coverage they carry, and uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage matters more than usual to a rider precisely because there is no PIP backstop if the driver who hit you turns out to have no insurance. The uninsured and underinsured motorist article covers that coverage in detail.

Keep the health-plan paperwork. When PIP is not paying, the explanation-of-benefits statements from your health insurer become the record of what the injury actually cost, and that record does double duty as proof of damages against the at-fault driver.

Watch the two clocks, which are not the same clock. Suit must be filed within three years of accrual under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2A. The crash report to the registrar is due within five days under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 26, whenever anyone is killed or injured or there is “damage in excess of one thousand dollars to any one vehicle or other property.” Motorcycle damage clears a thousand dollars easily. See the crash reporting article and the deadlines article.

Do not accept a threshold argument at face value. If an adjuster tells a Massachusetts-insured rider that pain and suffering is off the table until the bills reach two thousand dollars, that is the position Murphy v. Bohn rejected. For how the threshold works when it does apply, see the serious injury threshold article.

This article is general Massachusetts legal information, not legal advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Massachusetts law is fact-specific, and how these statutes and decisions apply to your crash depends on details this page cannot know, beginning with where your motorcycle was registered and insured and what your policy actually says. For advice about your situation, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the intake line is answered 24 hours a day and the first telephone consultation is free.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Do I have to meet the $2,000 medical-bill threshold to sue for pain and suffering after a Massachusetts motorcycle crash?

A: Generally no, if your motorcycle was registered and insured in Massachusetts. In Murphy v. Bohn, 377 Mass. 544 (1979), the Supreme Judicial Court held that a Massachusetts motorcyclist’s right to recover is unimpaired by the pain and suffering restriction in M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 6D, because the rider funds the no-fault system through a required policy but is excluded from personal injury protection while riding. The threshold in section 6D was five hundred dollars when Murphy was decided and is two thousand dollars today, but the reasoning does not depend on the figure.

Q: Does that rule protect an out-of-state rider hurt in Massachusetts?

A: Not automatically, and this is the part people get wrong. In Prouty v. Brown, 22 Mass. App. Ct. 992 (1986), the Appeals Court explained that the Supreme Judicial Court reached its result in Murphy “not because the accident in that case involved a motorcyclist plaintiff but because under a Massachusetts regulation, promulgated pursuant to St. 1970, c. 744, sec. 4, the plaintiff had contributed to a no-fault system which did not allow him recourse to its benefits.” The rider in Prouty was insured in Connecticut, had contributed nothing to the Massachusetts system, and was held to section 6D. Where your motorcycle is registered and insured can decide whether the threshold applies to you.

Q: Why is the at-fault driver not protected by the tort exemption when they hit a motorcycle?

A: Because the exemption is measured by your PIP eligibility, not by the other driver’s coverage. M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34M exempts an owner, registrant, operator or occupant from tort liability “to the extent that the injured party is, or would be had he or someone for him not purchased a deductible authorized by this section, entitled to recover under those provisions of a motor vehicle liability policy or bond that provide personal injury protection benefits or from the insurer assigned.” A rider with no PIP entitlement produces an exemption of zero, so the medical bills a car occupant would have to absorb through their own PIP are recoverable from the at-fault driver instead.

Q: Who pays my medical bills after a motorcycle crash if there is no PIP?

A: Your health insurance, from the first dollar, and then the at-fault driver’s bodily injury coverage through the claim. A car occupant has PIP paying medical expenses regardless of fault while liability is sorted out. A motorcyclist does not, which is why the treatment record and the health plan’s explanation-of-benefits statements matter more in a motorcycle claim than in a car claim. Optional coverages such as medical payments coverage may be available on a motorcycle policy; check your declarations page rather than assuming.

Q: Does a Massachusetts motorcycle policy have any PIP on it at all?

A: Yes, but not for you. As Murphy v. Bohn described the scheme, a Massachusetts motorcycle owner “is required to carry insurance which provides P.I.P. coverage for the benefit of eligible parties not traveling on the motorcycle (e.g., pedestrians injured in an accident involving a motorcycle), regardless of fault, while those on the motorcycle are excluded from such coverage.” The coverage exists on the policy and protects people your motorcycle strikes.

Q: Can I claim PIP under my car policy, or my spouse’s, for a motorcycle injury?

A: No. Murphy v. Bohn quotes the regulation as barring a person who “suffers bodily injury while an operator or a guest on a motorcycle” from recovering “through the so-called assigned claims plan or under the Personal Injury Protection coverage of any insurance policy covering any other motor vehicle owned by such person or any member of his household.” The household car policy does not reach the injury.

Q: Are helmets required in Massachusetts, and does not wearing one destroy my claim?

A: Helmets are required, and no, a violation does not end the claim by itself. M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 7 is explicit: “Every person operating a motorcycle or riding as a passenger on a motorcycle or in a sidecar attached to a motorcycle shall wear protective head gear conforming with such minimum standards of construction and performance as the registrar may prescribe.” The only carve-out in that sentence applies where “the motorcyclist is participating in a properly permitted public parade and is 18 years of age or older.” There is no general exemption for adult riders. Under M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 85, a plaintiff’s violation of a criminal statute, ordinance or regulation that contributed to the injury “shall be considered as evidence of negligence of that plaintiff, but the violation of said statute, ordinance or regulation shall not as a matter of law and for that reason alone, serve to bar a plaintiff from recovery.”

Q: Does a motorcycle count as a motor vehicle under Massachusetts law?

A: Yes, and that is why the threshold question needed a court to answer it. M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 1 defines a motorcycle as “any motor vehicle having a seat or saddle for the use of the rider and designed to travel on not more than three wheels in contact with the ground,” so the statutory text of section 6D and section 34M reaches motorcycles on its face. The rider’s exemption from the threshold comes from the insurance scheme those statutes are built on, not from the definitions.

Q: How long do I have to bring a Massachusetts motorcycle accident claim?

A: Three years. M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2A provides that tort actions “shall be commenced only within three years next after the cause of action accrues.” A separate and much shorter deadline applies to the crash report: M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 26 requires a written report to the registrar within five days of an accident in which anyone is killed or injured or there is “damage in excess of one thousand dollars to any one vehicle or other property.”

Q: Is Jimmy Knows AI giving me legal advice?

A: No. This article is general Massachusetts legal information, not legal advice for your specific situation, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Whether the threshold applies to a particular rider turns on facts this page cannot know, starting with where the motorcycle was insured. For advice about your situation, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the first telephone consultation is free.