When and Where Do Teen Drivers Crash in Massachusetts?

Crashes involving a 16 or 17 year old driver in Massachusetts cluster at two times of day, the 7 a.m. hour and the early afternoon, and they are rare between midnight and 5 a.m., the window the junior operator law closes to new drivers. That is the pattern in MassDOT’s crash records for 2022 through 2024: 18,977 crashes in which the youngest driver involved was 16 or 17, which is 4.68 percent of the 405,242 crashes in the file. By county, the share runs from 6.27 percent in Plymouth County to 1.13 percent in Suffolk County, and the towns with the highest shares are suburbs, not cities.

This page sets out what the records show by hour, county and town, what the numbers can and cannot tell you, and how the Massachusetts junior operator rules and insurance law apply when a crash involves a teen driver. It is general information built from public data, not advice about a particular crash.

What the Data Measures

MassDOT’s open crash database records every police-reported crash in Massachusetts. The field used here, AGE_DRVR_YNGST, stores the age band of the youngest driver involved in each crash. So a crash lands in the “16 to 17” band when the youngest driver was 16 or 17, whoever else was involved.

That definition matters in three ways:

1. It says nothing about fault. A crash in which a 45-year-old rear-ends a 17-year-old at a light is counted in the teen band, exactly like one the 17-year-old caused.
2. It counts crashes, not drivers or miles. The data does not say how many teens drive or how far, so a band’s size is not a crash rate per driver.
3. About 5 percent of crashes have no age recorded. Statewide, 20,609 crashes (5.09 percent) carry no youngest-driver age, which happens, for example, when a driver leaves the scene; only 7.34 percent of those crashes involved an injury. That share varies by county and town, which is why every share below is calculated against crashes with a known age.

The 16 to 17 band lines up with the law. A Massachusetts learner’s permit is available at 16 under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 8B, and a junior operator license, the restricted license for drivers under 18, requires at least six months on a permit under c. 90, sec. 8. So the band holds permit holders driving with a supervisor and junior operators driving on their own.

Teen Crashes by Hour: School Hours In, Late Night Out

The hour pattern is the clearest finding in the data, and it is different from every other age group.

Hour of the crash	Crashes with a 16 or 17 year old driver	All crashes
7 a.m. to 7:59 a.m.	8.23% (1,562)	4.85%
8 a.m. to 8:59 a.m.	3.72% (705)	5.36%
2 p.m. to 2:59 p.m.	11.85% (2,248)	7.27%
2 p.m. to 3:59 p.m. combined	21.79%	15.25%
Midnight to 4:59 a.m. combined	2.43% (461)	6.41%

Two things stand out. The morning peak for teen crashes is the 7 a.m. hour, an hour earlier than the 8 a.m. peak for everyone else, and the afternoon peak arrives at 2 p.m., when crashes overall are still climbing toward their 4 p.m. high. Those are school start and dismissal times, and a new driver on the way to or from school is the simplest reading of both peaks. The data does not record trip purpose, so that reading is an inference, not a measurement.

The late-night gap is the other side. Between midnight and 5 a.m., 6.41 percent of all Massachusetts crashes happen, but only 2.43 percent of crashes involving a 16 or 17 year old driver. The junior operator law bars driving from 12:30 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. unless a parent or legal guardian is in the car, and the data is consistent with that rule working, though it cannot prove the law is the cause. The midnight hour in the data runs from 12:00 to 12:59, so it includes half an hour before the restriction starts.

Teen Crashes by County

Where teen crashes happen tracks where teens drive, and that is mostly outside the dense core.

County	Crashes with a 16 or 17 year old driver	Share of crashes with a known driver age	Crashes with no age recorded
Plymouth	1,963	6.27%	2.4%
Barnstable	829	5.53%	3.3%
Bristol	2,510	5.37%	5.6%
Essex	2,236	5.22%	5.2%
Hampshire	382	5.16%	2.1%
Middlesex	3,973	5.10%	6.4%
Worcester	2,908	5.10%	4.0%
Norfolk	2,055	5.07%	3.1%
Franklin	167	5.03%	3.8%
Berkshire	372	4.71%	3.1%
Hampden	1,306	4.01%	5.9%
Nantucket	25	3.49%	9.5%
Dukes	18	2.75%	2.4%
Suffolk	233	1.13%	11.1%

Middlesex County has the most teen crashes by count, 3,973, simply because it has the most crashes. Plymouth County has the highest share: 6.27 percent of its crashes with a known driver age involved a 16 or 17 year old driver. Suffolk County, which is Boston, Chelsea, Revere and Winthrop, has the lowest by a wide margin at 1.13 percent, and it also has the highest share of crashes with no age recorded, 11.1 percent. Some of Suffolk’s gap may reflect fewer teen drivers in the city and some may be missing data, and the records cannot separate the two.

County also matters for a practical reason. In a Massachusetts civil case, the county where a lawsuit is filed is set by where the parties live or have a usual place of business under M.G.L. c. 223, sec. 1, not by where the crash happened, so a teen crash on a Plymouth County road can end up in another county’s court.

Teen Crashes by Town

Among the Massachusetts towns with at least 1,500 crashes in the three years, the highest teen shares are all suburbs:

• North Andover: 150 teen crashes, 9.01 percent of its 1,715 crashes with a known age.
• Easton: 137, 8.84 percent of 1,585.
• Reading: 123, 8.10 percent of 1,534.
• Hopkinton: 119, 7.79 percent.
• North Attleborough: 115, 7.52 percent.
• Plymouth: 202, 7.50 percent of its 2,735 crashes.

The lowest shares are in the densest cities: Somerville 0.77 percent (14 crashes), Cambridge 0.79 percent (29), Boston 0.96 percent (144 of 17,408 crashes) and Chelsea 1.23 percent (35). Two of those have the most missing data in the state: 22.9 percent of Cambridge crashes and 13.5 percent of Boston crashes have no driver age at all, against 1.6 percent in Plymouth. That is the reason this table is presented as a picture of where teen drivers crash, not a ranking of where teens drive worst. A town with many teen drivers and short suburban trips will show a high share even if its roads are no more dangerous.

By raw count, the larger cities still carry hundreds of teen crashes: Worcester 392, New Bedford 353, Fall River 296, Springfield 286, Lowell 264 and Brockton 229. Every town’s full crash figures, including injury and fatal counts and its highest-crash roads, are on the crash report, for example Plymouth, North Andover and Worcester.

Are Teen Crashes More Severe?

Per crash, no. This is the surprising part of the data, and it needs care.

Of the 18,977 crashes in the 16 to 17 band, 21.94 percent involved an injury, against 22.89 percent for all crashes, and 40 involved a death, which is 2.11 per 1,000 crashes against 2.68 per 1,000 overall. The 18 to 20 band was 23.73 percent injury and 2.35 fatal per 1,000. The highest fatal rates per crash are at the other end of life: 8.93 per 1,000 when the youngest driver was 75 to 84, and 10.78 per 1,000 when the youngest was over 84. The older driver crash data article covers that end of the age range.

Two cautions keep this from meaning “teen drivers are safe.” First, the band is set by the youngest driver, so a multi-vehicle crash involving a teen and an adult counts as a teen crash, while a single-car crash by a 70-year-old counts only in the older band; the mix of crash types differs by band. Second, per-crash severity is not risk per mile. A group whose crashes cluster in daytime commuting traffic can show lower severity per crash without that saying anything about how often it crashes for the miles it drives. Deaths in the teen band did fall over the period, from 15 in 2022 and 16 in 2023 to 9 in 2024, while teen crash counts rose slightly, from 6,204 to 6,414. Counts that small move a lot from year to year.

Answer Capsule

MassDOT’s crash records for 2022 through 2024 show 18,977 crashes in which the youngest driver was 16 or 17, 4.68 percent of the 405,242 crashes statewide. They cluster at school hours: 8.23 percent happened in the 7 a.m. hour and 11.85 percent in the 2 p.m. hour, against 4.85 and 7.27 percent of all crashes, and only 2.43 percent happened between midnight and 5 a.m., against 6.41 percent overall, consistent with the junior operator restriction on driving from 12:30 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 8. By county the teen share of crashes with a known driver age runs from 6.27 percent in Plymouth to 1.13 percent in Suffolk, and the highest town shares among towns with 1,500 or more crashes are North Andover (9.01 percent), Easton (8.84) and Reading (8.10). Per crash, the teen band had a lower injury share (21.94 percent) and a lower fatal rate (2.11 per 1,000) than all crashes (22.89 percent, 2.68), because the band is set by the youngest driver and counts crashes, not miles.

The Junior Operator Rules Behind the Numbers

Massachusetts licenses drivers under 18 in stages under M.G.L. c. 90, secs. 8 and 8B.

• Learner’s permit at 16. A permit holder may drive only with a licensed driver who is at least 21, has at least one year of experience, and sits beside the driver.
• Junior operator license after six months. Section 8 requires six months on a permit with no surchargeable incidents, a driver education course, and a parent’s certification of at least 40 hours of supervised driving, or 30 hours after an approved closed-course skills program.
• Passenger limit for the first six months. A junior operator may not drive with a passenger under 18, other than an immediate family member, unless a licensed driver who is at least 21 with a year of experience sits beside them. A violation means a license suspension of 60 days for a first offense, 180 days for a second and a year for a third.
• Night limit until 18. A junior operator may not drive between 12:30 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. unless accompanied by a parent or legal guardian. A violator is “deemed to be operating a motor vehicle without being duly licensed,” with the same 60-day, 180-day and one-year suspensions. Between 12:30 and 1:00 a.m. and between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m., police enforce the rule only after stopping the driver for another violation.

A broken junior operator rule is also evidence in a civil case. It does not decide fault on its own, but a crash at 2 a.m. by an unaccompanied 17-year-old, or with three under-18 friends aboard in the first months of a license, gives the other side a statute to point to. The site’s article on the hands-free driving law notes that drivers under 18 fall under a stricter statute, M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 8M, which bans any use of a mobile device while driving.

Who Pays After a Crash With a Teen Driver

Most teen drivers in Massachusetts drive a parent’s car on a parent’s policy, and the law follows the car and the consent.

1. The car’s liability policy covers the teen driving with permission. M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34A requires every motor vehicle liability policy to protect “the insured and any person responsible for the operation of the insured’s motor vehicle with his express or implied consent.” A teen driving the family car with a parent’s permission is covered by the policy on that car.
2. Personal injury protection pays medical bills without regard to fault. PIP, the no-fault part of every Massachusetts policy, covers members of the policyholder’s household and any authorized operator, up to at least $8,000 per person. The PIP article explains how it is used.
3. The registered owner starts out responsible in court. Under M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 85A, evidence that the car was registered to the defendant is prima facie evidence, meaning proof that stands unless rebutted, that it was being driven by someone for whose conduct the owner was legally responsible. The owner must plead and prove otherwise.
4. Parents are not automatically liable for a teen’s careless driving. M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 85G makes parents liable for a child’s willful acts, meaning intentional acts, that injure a person or damage property, for a child over 7 and under 18, and caps that liability at $5,000. An ordinary negligent crash is not a willful act, so claims against parents usually run through the car’s insurance and the owner rules above, not sec. 85G.
5. An injured teen has more time to sue. Most tort claims must be filed within three years under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2A, but c. 260, sec. 7 lets a minor bring the action within that period “after the disability is removed,” which in practice means the three years generally start at 18. Insurance notice deadlines do not wait, so the claim should still be reported right away.

The comparative negligence article explains how fault is split when both drivers share blame, and the minor settlement article covers when a court must approve a settlement for an injured child.

Key terms

• Junior operator license: the restricted Massachusetts license for a driver under 18, issued under c. 90, sec. 8 after at least six months on a learner’s permit.
• Youngest-driver age band: the MassDOT field that records the age range of the youngest driver in a crash, which is how a crash is counted as a teen crash here.
• Known-age share: the percentage of a place’s crashes, among those with a driver age recorded, that fall in a given band; it removes crashes with no age from the denominator.
• Personal injury protection (PIP): no-fault coverage of at least $8,000 per person for medical bills and lost wages, paid to household members and authorized operators regardless of fault.
• Willful act: an intentional act, the only kind of conduct for which c. 231, sec. 85G makes parents liable, up to $5,000.
• Tolling: pausing a legal deadline; c. 260, sec. 7 pauses the limitations period for a minor until the minor turns 18.

Using These Numbers

The data is best read as a map of exposure, not a verdict on any driver. For a family with a new driver, it points at the morning commute to school and the early afternoon as the hours with the most teen crashes, and it supports keeping to the night limit. For anyone hurt in a crash with a teen driver, it is background, not proof; the facts of the crash, the police report and the policies involved decide the claim. Crash data for every Massachusetts town is on the crash report, the month-by-month crash article shows how the calendar shifts crash counts by county, and the practice overview is on the auto accidents page, including the city pages for Plymouth, Worcester, Brockton and Boston.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What time of day do teen drivers crash most in Massachusetts?

A: In MassDOT records for 2022 through 2024, crashes involving a 16 or 17 year old driver peaked in the 2 p.m. hour (11.85 percent of them) and the 7 a.m. hour (8.23 percent), against 7.27 and 4.85 percent of all crashes, which lines up with school start and dismissal times.

Q: How many crashes involve teen drivers in Massachusetts?

A: From 2022 through 2024 there were 18,977 crashes in which the youngest driver was 16 or 17, which is 4.68 percent of 405,242 crashes, and 42,531 in which the youngest driver was 18 to 20.

Q: Which Massachusetts county has the highest share of teen driver crashes?

A: Plymouth County, where 6.27 percent of crashes with a known driver age involved a 16 or 17 year old driver. Suffolk County had the lowest share, 1.13 percent, and the highest rate of crashes with no age recorded.

Q: Can a junior operator drive at night in Massachusetts?

A: Not between 12:30 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. unless accompanied by a parent or legal guardian, under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 8. A violator is treated as driving without being duly licensed and faces a 60-day suspension for a first offense.

Q: Can a junior operator drive friends in Massachusetts?

A: Not in the first six months of the license if a passenger is under 18 and is not an immediate family member, unless a licensed driver at least 21 with a year of experience sits beside the junior operator. A first violation brings a 60-day suspension.

Q: Are parents liable if their teenager causes a car crash in Massachusetts?

A: Not automatically. M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 85G makes parents liable only for a child’s willful acts, capped at $5,000. A negligent crash is usually covered by the car’s insurance, which protects anyone driving with the owner’s consent under c. 90, sec. 34A, and c. 231, sec. 85A makes the registered owner prima facie responsible in court.

Q: How long does a teenager hurt in a crash have to file a claim?

A: M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 7 lets a minor bring an action within the usual limitations period after the disability of being a minor is removed, so the three-year period in c. 260, sec. 2A generally runs from the 18th birthday. Insurance claims should still be reported promptly.

Q: Is Jimmy Knows AI giving me legal advice?

A: No. This is general information drawn from MassDOT’s public crash records and the Massachusetts statutes, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. A specific crash involving a teen driver should be reviewed with a lawyer.

Talking to a Lawyer

A crash involving a teen driver often means a parent’s policy, a question about license restrictions, and, if the teen was hurt, a minor’s claim that a court may need to approve. Getting the police report and the policy information together early makes each of those simpler.

Jim Glaser Law can be reached at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge. Cases accepted on a contingency basis carry no attorney fee unless there is a recovery, and case costs and expenses are addressed in the written fee agreement signed at intake.