How Many Crashes Happen on Memorial Drive in Chicopee?

From 2022 through 2024, MassDOT crash records place 792 crashes on Memorial Drive in Chicopee, 15.1 percent of every crash in the city, with 1 fatal crash and 146 crashes that injured someone. No other named road in Chicopee comes close: Interstate 391 is second with 347. The surprise is in the speed field. More than a third of Memorial Drive’s crash records, 277 of 792, carry a posted speed of 15 miles per hour or less, five times the share on Chicopee’s other streets, and those low-speed crashes are mostly parked cars and drivers who left without stopping.

If you were hurt in a crash on Memorial Drive 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.

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 Memorial Drive and limited to Chicopee. The same name is used for separate roads in Cambridge, Avon, Shrewsbury and other towns, so a statewide count by name would mix several different streets. Memorial Drive in Chicopee carries Route 33, but only one Chicopee crash in three years is mile-marked to that route, so the name is the only way to count the whole road.

Three checks were run before any number was used:

1. The road was limited to one city. Every crash counted here has Chicopee as its city or town.
2. The totals were reconciled. Memorial Drive plus every other Chicopee crash equals the city total in each year: 291 plus 1,488 is 1,779 in 2022, 262 plus 1,555 is 1,817 in 2023, and 239 plus 1,402 is 1,641 in 2024. Every breakdown on this page adds up to 792.
3. The comparison groups were chosen to hold the police department constant. Chicopee police wrote 790 of the 792 reports. Chicopee’s other streets, written by the same department, are the main comparison, alongside every crash on roads of the same class in Hampden County and across Massachusetts.

The Three-Year Record

Measure	Memorial Drive	Chicopee’s other streets	Same road class, Hampden County	Same road class, statewide
Crashes, 2022 to 2024	792	4,445	10,172	89,343
Fatal crashes	1	21	31	223
Crashes with a non-fatal injury	146	1,046	2,743	21,317
Injury share	18.4%	23.5%	27.0%	23.9%
Hit and run share	16.3%	14.5%	10.2%	7.8%
Posted speed 15 mph or less	35.0%	7.2%	8.1%	5.2%

By year, the road had 291, 262 and 239 crashes, a fall of 17.9 percent from 2022 to 2024, and 44, 61 and 41 injury crashes. It was the top inventory name in Chicopee in all three years:

Chicopee road	2022	2023	2024	Three years
Memorial Drive	291	262	239	792
Interstate 391	143	118	86	347
Massachusetts Turnpike	107	105	102	314
Montgomery Street	81	95	89	265
Chicopee Street	86	87	90	263

The Chicopee crash report lists Memorial Drive first too, with 203 crashes in 2024, because that list is built from the typed roadway field, which splits one road across several spellings. Counted by the inventory name, the 2024 figure is 239.

What the crashes look like:

• Rear-end crashes are 32.6 percent (258), angle crashes 20.7 percent (164) and same-direction sideswipes 16.7 percent (132).
• A traffic signal controlled the location in 277 crashes, 35.0 percent, and those account for 75 of the 146 injury crashes.
• Half the crashes, 398, were not at a junction. Another 234 were at a four-way intersection, 29 on an on-ramp, 28 at a driveway and 24 at a traffic circle.
• 79.8 percent happened in daylight (632). Only 3 were in the dark on an unlighted stretch.
• The afternoon is the busiest time. The six hours from noon to 6 p.m. hold 435 crashes, 54.9 percent, and the 4 p.m. hour alone holds 88.
• Wet pavement was recorded in 120 crashes, 15.2 percent.

Why a Third of the Crashes Are Recorded at 15 MPH or Less

Each crash report records the posted speed where the crash happened. On Memorial Drive the most common figures are 35 miles per hour (189 crashes), 40 (146) and 30 (118). But 123 records carry 15, 83 carry 10 and 70 carry 5.

That is unusual for a road of this kind. Across every crash on roads of Memorial Drive’s class in Massachusetts, 5.2 percent carry a posted speed of 15 or less. On Chicopee’s other streets it is 7.2 percent. Memorial Drive alone holds 277 of the 595 such records in the whole city, 46.6 percent.

The low-speed records behave the way low-speed records behave everywhere:

What the record shows	Memorial Drive, 15 mph or less	Memorial Drive, above 15 mph	Same road class statewide, 15 mph or less
Crashes	277	515	4,603
Injury share	8.3% (23)	23.9% (123)	7.4%
First struck a parked vehicle	36.8% (102)	2.5% (13)	37.5%
Hit and run	27.4% (76)	10.3% (53)	16.9%

Speeds of 5, 10 and 15 miles per hour, a parked vehicle as the first thing struck, and a high share of drivers who left look like crashes in parking areas and driveways rather than on the travel lanes. The records have no field that says a crash happened in a parking lot, and the typed roadway on all 277 reads only as Memorial Drive, with no business name. So this page does not count parking lot crashes. It reports what the speed field and the first harmful event show.

Is Memorial Drive More Dangerous Than Other Chicopee Streets?

The records cannot answer that, because they count crashes and not traffic, and Memorial Drive is one of the busiest roads in the city. What they can test is whether a crash on Memorial Drive hurts people more or less often than a crash elsewhere.

On the whole road, the injury share is 18.4 percent, well below the 23.5 percent on Chicopee’s other streets. That gap shows up in every common type of crash: rear-end 24.8 against 26.7 percent, angle 20.1 against 27.2, same-direction sideswipe 7.6 against 12.2.

The low-speed records explain it. Set them aside and count only crashes posted above 15 miles per hour, and Memorial Drive’s injury share is 23.9 percent (123 of 515), against 24.9 percent (1,018 of 4,096) on Chicopee’s other streets and 25.0 percent for the road class statewide. On the travel lanes, a crash on Memorial Drive injures someone at about the same rate as a crash anywhere else in Chicopee. The road’s lower overall figure comes from the large number of low-speed, mostly property-damage crashes recorded on it.

The same is true of hit and run. On the whole road, 16.3 percent of crashes were hit and run. Above 15 miles per hour it is 10.3 percent, lower than the 13.8 percent on Chicopee’s other streets. Chicopee’s other streets record hit and run at 14.5 percent, nearly twice the 7.8 percent statewide for roads of Memorial Drive’s class, so a high hit-and-run share is a city-wide pattern, not a Memorial Drive one.

Answer Capsule

MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024 place 792 crashes on Memorial Drive in Chicopee, counted on the road inventory name and limited to the city: 291, 262 and 239 by year, 15.1 percent of Chicopee’s 5,237 crashes and more than twice the next named road, Interstate 391 (347). One was fatal, a rear-end crash at a four-way intersection in the 11 p.m. hour in July 2024, and 146 involved a non-fatal injury, 18.4 percent, against 23.5 percent on Chicopee’s other streets. The difference comes from the speed field: 277 records, 35.0 percent, carry a posted speed of 15 miles per hour or less, against 7.2 percent elsewhere in Chicopee, and those crashes injured someone 8.3 percent of the time, began with a parked vehicle 36.8 percent of the time and were hit and run 27.4 percent of the time. Above 15 miles per hour the injury share is 23.9 percent, matching the city’s other streets. A claim from a crash on the road must be started within three years under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2A.

The One Fatal Crash

In three years, one crash on Memorial Drive was fatal. On July 25, 2024, in the 11 p.m. hour, two passenger cars traveling north collided in a rear-end crash at a four-way intersection, on a dry, lighted roadway posted at 35 miles per hour. One person was killed and two were injured. The report codes the second driver as operating in an erratic, reckless, careless, negligent or aggressive manner and as inattentive. At the road class rate of 2.50 fatal crashes per 1,000, a road with 792 crashes would be expected to have about 2, so one is not a figure to rank.

Pedestrians and Bicyclists

Thirteen crashes involved a pedestrian and 9 a bicyclist. Twelve of the pedestrian crashes injured someone, and 8 of the 13 carry a posted speed of 15 miles per hour or less, the same pattern as the rest of the low-speed records. All 13 were in daylight or on a lighted roadway, and one was a hit and run.

The Law That Applies to a Crash on Memorial Drive

The crash data describes the road. A handful of statutes decide what a person hurt or damaged on it can do.

Leaving after a collision is a crime, even with no injury. Under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 24(2)(a), a driver who goes away after knowingly colliding with or otherwise causing injury to any other vehicle or property, without stopping and making known their name, residence and the registration number of the vehicle, faces a fine of not less than $20 nor more than $200, or imprisonment for not less than two weeks nor more than two years, or both. Leaving after injuring a person carries far heavier penalties. See the Massachusetts hit-and-run penalties.

Report a hit and run to the police even if nobody was hurt. 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 within five days and send a copy to the police department with jurisdiction. The same section says the police department “shall accept a report filed by an owner or operator whose vehicle has been damaged in an accident in which another person has unlawfully left the scene.” See how to report a car accident in Massachusetts.

A hit-and-run injury is covered by your own policy. Under M.G.L. c. 175, sec. 113L, every Massachusetts auto policy must include coverage for people legally entitled to recover from owners or operators of uninsured motor vehicles “and hit-and-run motor vehicles because of bodily injury.” On a road where more than a quarter of the low-speed crashes were hit and run, that matters. See uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage.

Your own policy pays the first medical bills. Under 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.” 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 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. See the serious injury threshold.

Partial fault reduces 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 crashes and sideswipes, half of this road’s total, often turn on following distance and lane changes, and crashes in parking areas turn on who was backing or pulling out. See how fault is decided in a parking lot accident.

Where the case is filed depends on where the parties live. Under c. 223, sec. 1, an 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 Memorial Drive

1. Call 911 if anyone is hurt, and call Chicopee police for any crash where the other driver will not exchange information. Chicopee police wrote 790 of the 792 reports on this road.
2. If your parked car was hit and the driver left, photograph the damage where it sits and look for any camera that faces the spot before footage is overwritten.
3. Get the other driver’s name, address, registration number and insurer. Section 24(2)(a) requires a driver who hits another vehicle to make known their name, residence and registration number.
4. 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.
5. Note exactly where it happened, including the nearest cross street, business entrance or driveway. The crash records say only “Memorial Drive,” so your own notes may be the clearest record of where.
6. Get the names of witnesses, including anyone who saw a driver leave.
7. File the Massachusetts crash report within five days if anyone was hurt or damage to any one vehicle tops $1,000, under c. 90, sec. 26.
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 Memorial Drive than on another road.
• Which crashes were in parking lots. No field in the records says so. The page reports the posted speed field instead.
• A fatal rate worth ranking. One fatal crash in three years is too few to rank.
• Memorial Drive in other towns. Roads of the same name in Cambridge, Avon, Shrewsbury and South Hadley are not counted here.
• Cause. The records say what was struck and what the officer coded, not why. They do not explain the fall from 291 to 239 crashes.
• 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.
• Posted speed: the speed limit the officer recorded for the place the crash happened.
• First harmful event: the first thing a vehicle struck in a crash, as the officer recorded it.
• Hit and run: a crash in which a driver involved left without stopping and identifying themselves, as recorded on the report.
• Road class: MassDOT’s functional class for a road; Memorial Drive is in the class for urban principal arterials, used here for comparison.
• Road inventory name: the street name MassDOT attaches to a crash record when it maps the location.

For the wider picture, see the Interstate 391 crash data, the Riverdale Street crash data in West Springfield, the Hampden County crash data, the Massachusetts hit-and-run crash data and the Massachusetts Turnpike crash data. If you live nearby, see car accident help in Chicopee, and every town’s numbers are in the Massachusetts crash report.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How many crashes happen on Memorial Drive in Chicopee?

A: MassDOT records show 792 crashes on Memorial Drive in Chicopee from 2022 through 2024: 291, 262 and 239 by year. That is 15.1 percent of all crashes in the city. One was fatal and 146 involved a non-fatal injury.

Q: What is the most dangerous road in Chicopee?

A: The records can say which road has the most crashes, and that is Memorial Drive, with 792 in three years against 347 on Interstate 391. They cannot say which is most dangerous, because they do not count traffic. A crash on Memorial Drive posted above 15 miles per hour injured someone 23.9 percent of the time, about the same as on Chicopee’s other streets.

Q: Why do so many Memorial Drive crash reports show a speed limit of 5, 10 or 15 mph?

A: The report records the posted speed where the crash happened, and 277 of the 792 records carry 15 or less. Those crashes mostly began with a parked vehicle and were often hit and run, the pattern of parking areas and driveways. The records do not have a parking lot field, so this page does not say how many were in lots.

Q: Someone hit my parked car on Memorial Drive and left. What should I do?

A: Report it to Chicopee police. Under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 26, the police department must accept a report from an owner whose vehicle was damaged by a driver who unlawfully left the scene. Leaving after knowingly colliding with another vehicle is itself an offense under c. 90, sec. 24(2)(a).

Q: Does my insurance cover me if a hit-and-run driver injured me on Memorial Drive?

A: M.G.L. c. 175, sec. 113L requires every Massachusetts auto policy to include coverage for bodily injury caused by uninsured and hit-and-run motor vehicles. Personal injury protection under c. 90, sec. 34A also pays the first $8,000 of medical bills and lost wages regardless of fault.

Q: Which court hears a case from a Memorial Drive crash?

A: Under M.G.L. c. 223, sec. 1, an action is brought in a county where one of the parties lives or has a usual place of business. The location of the crash in Chicopee does not decide it.

Q: How long do I have to bring a claim after a crash on Memorial Drive?

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.

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 Memorial Drive are rear-end, angle and lane-change crashes on the travel lanes, or low-speed collisions where a parked car is hit and the other driver is not always there to answer for it. Either way, the questions afterward are usually about fault, insurance 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.