What Happens When an Out-of-State Driver Hits You in a Massachusetts Border Town?

If a driver from New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut or anywhere else hits you on a Massachusetts road, the claim is handled in Massachusetts, under Massachusetts rules, and the fact that the other car has out-of-state plates changes less than most people expect. Your own Massachusetts personal injury protection still pays the first layer of medical bills and lost wages, and M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34A specifically extends PIP to you and your household when you are hurt by “a motor vehicle not insured by a policy or bond providing personal injury protection.” Under c. 90, sec. 3A, simply driving on a Massachusetts way is “deemed equivalent to an appointment” of the Registrar of Motor Vehicles as the nonresident driver’s agent for service of a lawsuit, so you do not have to chase the driver into another state to sue. What does change is the insurance picture. A visiting driver is not required to carry a Massachusetts-standard policy for short visits, and New Hampshire’s law is built around proving financial responsibility after a crash rather than buying a policy to register a car. That makes your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage matter more on the border than almost anywhere else. The thirteen Massachusetts cities and towns on the main crossings into those three states recorded 32,624 crashes from 2022 through 2024, 8.05 percent of the state total.

This article covers the rules first, then what the MassDOT numbers show about the border towns, and what they do not show.

Who Is Allowed to Drive Here on Out-of-State Plates

The starting rule is c. 90, sec. 3. A vehicle “owned by a non-resident who has complied with the laws relative to motor vehicles and trailers, and the registration and operation thereof, of the state or country of registration, may be operated on the ways of this commonwealth without registration under this chapter.” In plain terms, a car legally registered in New Hampshire can be driven in Massachusetts on New Hampshire’s rules.

The Massachusetts insurance requirement for such a car does not start on day one. Section 3 limits operation to “thirty days in the aggregate in any one year” and, where the owner “acquires a regular place of abode or business or employment within the commonwealth,” to thirty days after that, “except during such time as the owner thereof maintains in full force a policy of liability insurance” covering bodily injury “at least to the amount or limits required in a motor vehicle liability policy as defined in section thirty-four A.”

Two consequences follow. A day-tripper from Salem, New Hampshire, who crosses into Methuen to shop is not breaking Massachusetts law by driving on New Hampshire’s terms, whatever those terms are. But a New Hampshire resident who commutes into a Massachusetts job every workday has, under the statute’s own words, acquired a regular place of employment here, and after thirty days is required to carry liability insurance at Massachusetts limits. The section also gives the injured person a presumption: in a damages action, proof that the driver did not have the policy or an insurer’s certificate in the vehicle or on hand at the time of the accident “shall create a presumption, which may be rebutted, that such insurance was not then being maintained as so required.”

Why New Hampshire is different

New Hampshire’s motor vehicle law does not follow the model Massachusetts uses, where a compulsory policy comes with the registration. Its Financial Responsibility Act, RSA chapter 264, is organised around what happens after a crash. RSA 264:3 directs the state, after an accident report, to suspend the license and registration of a driver and owner involved in the reported accident until they furnish security to satisfy any judgment and give proof of financial responsibility for the future, unless a liability policy was already in effect. RSA 264:20 sets that proof at $25,000 for bodily injury or death to one person, $50,000 for two or more people in one accident, and $25,000 for property damage.

A suspension in New Hampshire does not pay a Massachusetts hospital. For someone injured by a New Hampshire driver who had no policy, the practical source of payment is usually their own coverage, which is the next section.

Drivers from Rhode Island, Connecticut or any other state raise the same practical questions. A visiting driver may turn out to be uninsured on the day of the crash, or may carry limits written to another state’s minimums that are lower than the injury requires.

Your Own Coverage Comes First

Personal injury protection

Massachusetts PIP is no-fault coverage in your own policy. Section 34A defines it as paying the named insured, household members, authorised operators and passengers of the insured vehicle, and “any pedestrian struck by the insured’s or obligor’s motor vehicle” for reasonable medical expenses and lost wages up to the policy’s PIP limit.

The border question is answered by a separate sentence in the same section: “Personal injury protection shall also provide for payment, to the named insured or obligor and members of their households, all amounts defined in this section in any case where such persons incur such expense or loss as a result of such injury while in, upon, entering into or alighting from, or by being struck as a pedestrian by, a motor vehicle not insured by a policy or bond providing personal injury protection unless such person recovers such expenses or loss in an action of tort.”

An out-of-state car is very often “a motor vehicle not insured by a policy or bond providing personal injury protection,” because PIP is a Massachusetts policy feature. So if you, or someone in your household, are hit as a pedestrian by that car or are riding in it, your own Massachusetts policy’s PIP is designed to respond. If you are driving your own Massachusetts-insured car, your PIP applies in the ordinary way. How PIP limits, deductibles and health insurance interact is covered in how PIP works in Massachusetts.

Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage

Chapter 175, sec. 113L requires every Massachusetts auto policy on a car registered here to include coverage “for the protection of persons insured thereunder who are legally entitled to recover damages from owners or operators of uninsured motor vehicles, trailers or semitrailers and hit-and-run motor vehicles because of bodily injury.” The coverage does not care which state the uninsured car came from.

Subsection (2) adds optional underinsured coverage. If you bought it, it protects you where the at-fault driver’s liability policy “is less than the policy limit for uninsured motor vehicle coverage and is insufficient to satisfy the damages.” That is the scenario on the border where the other driver did have a policy, written to another state’s minimums, and the injury is larger than those limits.

The detail worth knowing now, before any crash, is what your own declarations page shows for these parts. The article on uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage in Massachusetts explains how a claim against your own insurer works, and Massachusetts car insurance requirements explains which parts are compulsory.

Answer Capsule

A crash with an out-of-state driver on a Massachusetts road is a Massachusetts claim. Your own PIP pays first, and M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34A extends it to you and your household when hurt by a vehicle not insured with PIP, which describes most out-of-state cars. The nonresident driver can be sued here: c. 90, sec. 3A treats driving on a Massachusetts way as appointing the Registrar of Motor Vehicles to accept service, and c. 223A, sec. 3(c) reaches anyone “causing tortious injury by an act or omission in this commonwealth.” The tort threshold in c. 231, sec. 6D and the three-year deadline in c. 260, sec. 2A apply. Because visiting drivers may be uninsured or carry low limits, your own uninsured and underinsured coverage under c. 175, sec. 113L is often the most important policy in the case.

Suing a Driver Who Lives in Another State

People on the border often assume that a claim against a New Hampshire or Rhode Island driver has to be filed in that driver’s state. Massachusetts law provides otherwise, in two places.

Service through the Registrar

Section 3A of chapter 90 says that operation of a vehicle on a Massachusetts way by a resident of another state “shall be deemed equivalent to an appointment by him of the registrar, or his successor in office, to be his true and lawful attorney upon whom may be served all lawful processes in any action or proceeding against him or his executor or administrator, growing out of any accident or collision in which such person or his agent may be involved while operating a motor vehicle.” The driver’s act of driving here is the consent.

Section 3C sets out how it is done. A copy of the process and a fee are left with the Registrar, and notice is given to the defendant either by registered mail, return receipt requested, to the address on the out-of-state registration or license, or by an officer in the state where the defendant is found. The plaintiff files an affidavit of compliance, and the court “may order such continuances as may be necessary to afford the defendant reasonable opportunity to defend the action.”

Jurisdiction and venue

Massachusetts courts also have long-arm jurisdiction under c. 223A, sec. 3, which lets a court exercise personal jurisdiction over a person as to a claim arising from “causing tortious injury by an act or omission in this commonwealth.” A crash on Route 1 in Attleboro is an act in the Commonwealth.

As for which county, c. 223, sec. 1 provides that a transitory action, which includes a personal injury suit, “if any one of the parties thereto lives in the commonwealth, be brought in the county where one of them lives or has his usual place of business.” A Massachusetts resident hurt by a Rhode Island driver can therefore usually file in the county where the Massachusetts resident lives. Which court within that county depends on the amount in controversy and the town; the county guides for Essex County, Bristol County and Worcester County cover most of the border crossings in this article.

The Massachusetts rules that come with the Massachusetts claim

The tort threshold applies. Chapter 231, sec. 6D limits recovery for pain and suffering in any tort action for bodily injury “arising out of the ownership, operation, maintenance or use of a motor vehicle within this commonwealth by the defendant” unless reasonable medical expenses exceed two thousand dollars or the injury is a death, loss of a body member, permanent and serious disfigurement, specified loss of sight or hearing, or a fracture. The phrase “within this commonwealth” is about where the vehicle was used, not where the driver lives. The threshold is explained in the serious injury threshold for Massachusetts car accidents.

The deadline applies too. Chapter 260, sec. 2A requires tort actions to be “commenced only within three years next after the cause of action accrues.”

One question is genuinely open on the text. Section 34M exempts from tort liability, to the extent of PIP benefits, the owner or operator “of a motor vehicle to which personal injury protection benefits apply.” Whether an out-of-state vehicle with no Massachusetts PIP falls inside that language is a question that affects how medical bills and wage loss are claimed against the other driver. It depends on the policies involved, and it is a question for a lawyer looking at both declarations pages rather than something to assume.

Reporting the crash

The written report duty in c. 90, sec. 26 applies to “every person operating a motor vehicle which is involved in an accident in which any person is killed or injured or in which there is damage in excess of one thousand dollars,” within five days, to the Registrar and the police department with jurisdiction. It applies to you whether or not the other driver files one. Get the other driver’s license state and number, the plate and registration state, and the name of any insurer, at the scene if it is safe to do so. That information is what the service rules in sec. 3C run on. The reporting process is covered in how to report a car accident in Massachusetts.

What the Border Town Numbers Show

The figures below come from MassDOT’s crash records for 2022 through 2024 as published in this site’s Massachusetts crash report. They cover thirteen communities that sit on the state line at the main road crossings: five on the New Hampshire line, four on the Rhode Island line and four on the Connecticut line.

One limit should be stated before any number. The town-level figures this site publishes do not record the registration state of the vehicles involved. Nothing below says how many of these crashes involved an out-of-state driver. What the numbers show is how often and how badly people are hurt on the roads where those drivers cross in.

The group as a whole

The thirteen communities recorded 32,624 crashes over the three years, 8.05 percent of the 405,239 crashes recorded statewide. They included 61 fatal crashes, 7,661 crashes involving injury, 232 involving a bicycle and 434 involving a pedestrian.

Measured per 1,000 crashes, the border towns ran slightly above the state on injury, at 234.83 against a statewide 228.90, and below it on everything else: 1.87 fatal crashes per 1,000 against 2.68, 7.11 bicycle crashes against 10.75, and 13.30 pedestrian crashes against 14.76. The picture is of places where crashes are a little more likely than average to hurt someone and somewhat less likely than average to kill someone.

The three state lines are not alike

The New Hampshire line. Salisbury, Methuen, Tyngsborough, Haverhill and Dracut together recorded 11,215 crashes, 20 fatal and 2,544 with injury, an injury rate of 226.8 per 1,000 crashes and a fatal rate of 1.78. Inside that group Methuen stands out. Its 3,409 crashes included 961 with injury, a rate of 281.9 per 1,000, which is 13th highest among the 116 Massachusetts communities that recorded at least 1,000 crashes. Interstate 93, which crosses into Salem, New Hampshire from Methuen, carried the town’s highest 2024 count for a single road listing, 22 crashes northbound, with a further 12 southbound. Haverhill, the largest of the five at 4,815 crashes, had a comparatively low fatal count of 4, and its busiest 2024 listings included Interstate 495 at 18 southbound and 17 northbound. Tyngsborough, where Route 3 continues into Nashua, recorded 917 crashes, and Dracut 1,335 with 5 fatal. Salisbury, where Interstate 95 and Route 1 cross into Seabrook, recorded 739 crashes, 1 of them fatal. The wider Lowell and Lawrence region is covered in the Merrimack Valley crash data, and Methuen’s full figures are on its crash report page.

The Rhode Island line. Attleboro, North Attleborough, Seekonk and Fall River recorded 16,001 crashes, the largest block of the three, with 25 fatal and 3,881 involving injury. That is an injury rate of 242.5 per 1,000, the highest of the three state lines, and a fatal rate of 1.56, the lowest. Fall River accounts for most of the volume on its own: 9,045 crashes, fifth highest in the state, 11 fatal and 2,286 with injury. Attleboro, where Interstate 95 enters from Pawtucket, recorded 3,234 crashes with 815 involving injury, and its 2024 road listings show Interstate 95 at 13 southbound and 7 northbound behind Route 1, Washington Street, at 25 and 22. Seekonk, on Interstate 195 and Route 6 into East Providence, recorded 2,167 crashes; its single busiest 2024 listing was Fall River Avenue at 102, with Interstate 195 westbound at 21. North Attleborough recorded 1,555 crashes and 5 fatal. For Fall River and the rest of the county, see the Fall River car accident page.

The Connecticut line. Webster, Sturbridge, Longmeadow and Agawam recorded the smallest total, 5,408 crashes, but 16 were fatal, a rate of 2.96 per 1,000 that is above the statewide 2.68 and well above either of the other two state lines. The injury rate was 228.6, essentially the state figure. The fatal rate is driven by Webster: 7 fatal crashes on 1,035 total, 6.76 per 1,000, second highest among the 116 communities with at least 1,000 crashes, behind only Gardner. Webster’s busiest 2024 listing that involves the interstate was the ramp system between Route 16 and Interstate 395, the highway south into Connecticut, at 18 crashes. Sturbridge recorded 1,400 crashes, with Interstate 84 at 12 eastbound and 8 westbound in 2024. Longmeadow, on Interstate 91 toward Enfield, recorded 939 crashes, with its northbound listing at 19 plus a separately recorded “I91 NB” entry at 9. Agawam recorded 2,034 crashes and 4 fatal.

Seven fatal crashes in a town of Webster’s crash volume is a small count, and small counts move a lot with a single bad year. The rate is accurate as arithmetic and should be read as a flag rather than a trend.

What this means for a claim

None of these numbers decides fault in any individual crash, and none is evidence that a particular driver was careless. They are useful in two narrower ways. They describe where the state line meets heavy traffic, which is where coverage questions about visiting drivers actually arise. And they show that the roads where Massachusetts residents meet New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut drivers are not quiet ones: the busiest single border community on the list, Fall River, recorded more crashes over three years than all four Connecticut-line towns combined.

A Short Checklist for a Border Crash

At the scene, if it is safe, photograph the other car’s plate and the other driver’s license and insurance card, and write down the state on each. An out-of-state license is the document the service rules in c. 90, sec. 3C use to find the driver later.

Call the police. A police report records the other driver’s details independently of what the driver tells you.

Give notice to your own insurer promptly, and open a PIP claim for medical bills and lost wages. If the other driver had no insurance, or you cannot identify an insurer, tell your insurer that you may be making an uninsured motorist claim.

File the written crash report required by c. 90, sec. 26 within five days where someone was injured or damage exceeds one thousand dollars.

Keep the three-year deadline in c. 260, sec. 2A in mind from the first day. An out-of-state defendant is not a reason the clock stops.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Where do I file a claim if a New Hampshire driver hits me in Massachusetts?

A: In Massachusetts. The crash happened here, c. 223A, sec. 3(c) gives Massachusetts courts jurisdiction over a person causing tortious injury by an act in the Commonwealth, and c. 223, sec. 1 allows a personal injury suit to be filed in the county where a Massachusetts party lives. Your own insurance claims, including PIP and any uninsured motorist claim, go to your own Massachusetts insurer.

Q: How do you serve a lawsuit on an out-of-state driver in Massachusetts?

A: Through the Registrar of Motor Vehicles. Under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 3A, a nonresident driving on a Massachusetts way is deemed to appoint the Registrar as the driver’s attorney to receive process in a suit arising from a crash. Section 3C requires leaving the process and a fee with the Registrar and sending notice and a copy by registered mail, return receipt requested, to the driver’s address of record, or having an officer serve it where the driver is found.

Q: Does my PIP cover me if the other car is from out of state?

A: Generally yes. Your PIP applies in the ordinary way when you are in your own insured car, and c. 90, sec. 34A adds coverage for you and your household when hurt while in, or struck as a pedestrian by, “a motor vehicle not insured by a policy or bond providing personal injury protection,” which describes most out-of-state vehicles. Policy limits and deductibles still apply.

Q: What if the out-of-state driver had no insurance?

A: Your own uninsured motorist coverage is designed for that. M.G.L. c. 175, sec. 113L requires Massachusetts auto policies to cover insured persons legally entitled to recover from owners or operators of uninsured vehicles for bodily injury. It does not depend on where the other car is registered. You can also pursue the driver personally, but an uninsured individual may have little to collect.

Q: Does an out-of-state driver need Massachusetts insurance?

A: Not for short visits. Under c. 90, sec. 3, a properly registered nonresident vehicle may be driven here on its home state’s rules, but not for more than thirty days in the aggregate in a year, or more than thirty days after the owner acquires a regular place of abode, business or employment in Massachusetts, unless the owner carries liability insurance at Massachusetts limits.

Q: Is car insurance required in New Hampshire?

A: New Hampshire’s approach differs from Massachusetts. Its Financial Responsibility Act, RSA chapter 264, is built around security and proof of financial responsibility after a reported accident, with license and registration suspension under RSA 264:3 for drivers and owners who were not already covered by a liability policy, and proof set at $25,000, $50,000 and $25,000 under RSA 264:20. For a Massachusetts resident, the practical point is to check your own uninsured and underinsured coverage.

Q: Does the Massachusetts $2,000 tort threshold apply to a crash with an out-of-state driver?

A: Yes, on the text. M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 6D applies to tort actions for bodily injury arising out of the use of a motor vehicle “within this commonwealth by the defendant,” which turns on where the vehicle was used rather than where the driver lives. Pain and suffering is recoverable only above two thousand dollars in reasonable medical expenses or for the listed injuries, including a fracture.

Q: Which Massachusetts border towns have the most crashes?

A: Among the thirteen communities at the main crossings into New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut, Fall River recorded the most, 9,045 crashes from 2022 through 2024 per MassDOT, followed by Haverhill at 4,815, Methuen at 3,409 and Attleboro at 3,234. The data does not record how many involved out-of-state vehicles.

Q: Is Jimmy Knows AI giving me legal advice?

A: No. This is general information about Massachusetts law and published crash data, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney client relationship. How these rules apply to a particular crash depends on the policies, the drivers and the facts. For advice about your own situation, speak with a Massachusetts attorney.

Talking to a Lawyer

A crash with an out-of-state driver tends to produce the same early mistake: the injured person waits to hear from the other driver’s insurer, which may be in another state, may not exist, or may carry limits far below the injury. Meanwhile the useful work is on your own side of the ledger, opening the PIP claim, preserving an uninsured or underinsured claim, and recording the other driver’s license and registration state while it is still easy to get.

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.