How Many Crashes Happen on Route 2 in Massachusetts?

From 2022 through 2024, MassDOT crash records place 2,552 crashes on Route 2 in Massachusetts, 11 of them fatal and 594 with a non-fatal injury. Four out of five of those crashes were on the highway between Cambridge and Phillipston, but six of the eleven fatal crashes were on the western road, the Mohawk Trail, which recorded only 505 crashes. Every one of those six was a collision between two vehicles, four of them head-on. Route 2 is one number on the map and two different roads in the record.

If you were hurt in a crash on Route 2 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. A head-on crash is one where two vehicles traveling in opposite directions strike front to front. The principal arterial class is every crash MassDOT places on a road it classifies as a rural or urban principal arterial, which is Route 2’s own class and the benchmark used on this page.

Where Route 2 Runs

Route 2 crosses the state from Boston to the New York line at Williamstown. The road inventory does not call it one thing. The crash records carry it under eight names, and this page counts all eight:

1. Concord Turnpike, in Cambridge, Belmont, Arlington and Concord, and again in Harvard, Lancaster and Leominster.
2. Concord Highway, in Lexington.
3. Cambridge Turnpike, in Lincoln.
4. Union Turnpike, in Concord.
5. Captain Isaac Davis Highway, in Acton, Boxborough and Littleton.
6. Route 2, in Lancaster, Fitchburg, Westminster, Gardner and Templeton and part of Acton, and again in Charlemont and part of Greenfield.
7. Mohawk Trail, from Athol and Orange through Greenfield and Shelburne to Florida, North Adams and Clarksburg.
8. French King Highway, in Erving, Gill and Greenfield.

This page splits the road in two at the Phillipston and Athol line. The eastern section is the seventeen communities from Cambridge to Phillipston, in Middlesex and Worcester counties. The western section is the thirteen communities from Athol to Clarksburg, most of it in Franklin County.

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 names, because from 2023 the State Police record most highway crashes by mile marker and leave the typed field blank.

The eight names were not typed in from a map. They were read from the records by taking every crash the State Police mile-marked to Route 2 and listing the inventory names attached. In 2023, 412 of 455 mile-marked Route 2 crashes carried one of the eight names, and in 2024 it was 359 of 392. The rest were on ramps, were mapped onto Interstate 190 where the two roads meet, or were on streets that carry Route 2’s number for a stretch.

That last group is the limit of the method. Where Route 2 runs along a street whose name is used by other roads, such as Main Street in Williamstown and North Adams, State Road, and the parkways in Cambridge and Boston, a count by name would pull in crashes that were never on Route 2. Those stretches are left out, so Williamstown does not appear and the North Adams figure is partial. In Lincoln and Concord, only crashes on the part of Cambridge Turnpike classified as a principal arterial are counted, because Concord also has a local street of that name.

The town totals in each year add up exactly to the road total, and the two sections add up to the same figure.

The Three-Year Record

Measure	Route 2	All principal arterial crashes	All Massachusetts crashes
Crashes, 2022 to 2024	2,552	44,448	405,242
Fatal crashes	11	157	1,087
Fatal crashes per 1,000 crashes	4.31	3.53	2.68
Crashes with a non-fatal injury	594	10,374	92,761
Injury share	23.28%	23.34%	22.89%

By year, Route 2 had 871 crashes in 2022, 892 in 2023 and 789 in 2024. Fatal crashes were 3, 3 and 5. The injury share is almost exactly the figure for the road’s class. The fatal rate looks a little higher than the class, and the next table shows that the whole-road figure describes neither half of the road.

Two roads under one number

Measure	Eastern section (Cambridge to Phillipston)	Western section (Athol to Clarksburg)	All principal arterial crashes
Crashes	2,047	505	44,448
Fatal crashes	5	6	157
Fatal crashes per 1,000 crashes	2.44	11.88	3.53
Injury share	23.55%	22.18%	23.34%
Single vehicle crashes	40.99%	41.39%	22.59%
Rear-end crashes	39.62%	22.38%	35.42%
Head-on crashes	15 (0.73%)	15 (2.97%)	720 (1.62%)
Deer strikes	7.43%	15.64%	3.50%
Reports written by State Police	96.97%	36.44%	not pulled

The eastern section had four times the crashes and fewer of the deaths. Its fatal rate, 2.44 per 1,000, is below the figure for its class. The western section’s rate is 11.88.

That western figure rests on six fatal crashes, and six is a small number. It is worth saying exactly how small. At the rate for its class, a road with 505 crashes would be expected to record about two fatal crashes in three years. The Mohawk Trail and French King Highway recorded two in each of the three years, in five different towns: Athol and Greenfield in 2022, Charlemont and Gill in 2023, Charlemont and Shelburne in 2024. One more or one fewer would move the rate a long way. What does not depend on the count is the kind of crash. All six were a collision with another vehicle in traffic. Four were recorded as head-on and two as angle crashes. Five happened in daylight. None began with a guardrail, a tree or an animal.

The eastern section shows the other pattern. Its five fatal crashes were two single vehicle crashes, one rear-end crash, one same-direction sideswipe and one head-on, and a guardrail was the first thing struck in two of the five. The same number of head-on crashes, 15, was recorded on each section, although the eastern section had four times the crashes.

The injury share does not separate the two sections. It is 23.55 percent in the east and 22.18 percent in the west, even though the State Police wrote nearly every report in the east and local police departments wrote 321 of the 505 in the west. A crash on the western road is no more likely to hurt someone than a crash on the eastern road. When it does, the record shows it is more often the kind of crash people do not survive.

The eastern highway: one car, a guardrail, and the morning commute

• Single vehicle crashes: 839, or 40.99 percent, against 22.59 percent for the principal arterial class. Rear-end crashes are 811 (39.62 percent). Angle crashes, the typical intersection crash, are only 89 (4.35 percent) against 16.72 percent for the class.
• Guardrails: 350 crashes, or 17.10 percent, against 5.05 percent for the class. A median barrier was the first thing struck in another 63.
• Deer: 152 crashes, or 7.43 percent, against 3.50 percent for the class.
• Dark and unlit: 397 crashes, or 19.39 percent, happened in the dark on a roadway with no lighting, against 9.09 percent for the class.
• Winter surfaces. Snow, ice or slush was recorded on 239 crashes, 11.68 percent. October (218) and January (213) were the highest months and July (120) the lowest.
• Not at a junction: 1,668 crashes, or 81.49 percent, against 62.01 percent for the class. Another 196 were on an on-ramp or off-ramp.
• Trucks and buses. Seventy-nine crashes (3.86 percent) were federally reportable commercial vehicle crashes.

The clock is the most distinctive thing about this section. The hour from 7 to 8 a.m. holds 201 of its 2,047 crashes, 9.82 percent, about double the share that hour holds for all Massachusetts crashes. The three hours from 6 to 9 a.m. hold 504, almost a quarter, and outweigh the afternoon peak from 3 to 6 p.m. (381). The posted limit written on the report was 55 on 1,500 of the 2,047.

The western road: the Mohawk Trail

• Single vehicle crashes: 209, or 41.39 percent. Here the single vehicle crash is more often an animal than a guardrail: 79 deer strikes (15.64 percent of all crashes) and 10 with other animals, against 40 guardrail strikes.
• Opposite-direction crashes. Fifteen head-on crashes, 14 opposite-direction sideswipes and 8 recorded as front to front: 37 crashes, 7.33 percent, in which vehicles going opposite ways met.
• Junctions. A third of the crashes were at a junction: 49 at four-way intersections, 49 at T-intersections and 26 at a traffic circle.
• Parked vehicles: 31 crashes, 6.14 percent, a figure that belongs to a town street and not a highway.
• Speed limits. The posted limit on the report was 50 on 122 crashes, 25 on 86, 55 on 76 and 35 on 69. The road changes character from town center to open country and back.
• November: 69 crashes, 13.66 percent of the three-year total, the highest month. August was lowest with 29.

By town sums, 412 of the 505 were in Franklin County, 52 in Berkshire County and 41 in Athol, in Worcester County.

Town by Town

Community (roughly east to west)	Route 2 crashes	With injury	Fatal	Community’s total crashes	Route 2 share of that total
Cambridge	36	5	0	4,774	0.8%
Arlington	73	16	0	1,109	6.6%
Lexington	126	16	1	1,692	7.4%
Lincoln	51	12	0	308	16.6%
Concord	233	60	1	1,097	21.2%
Acton	77	29	0	842	9.1%
Littleton	123	22	1	973	12.6%
Harvard	243	58	0	558	43.5%
Lancaster	202	52	2	791	25.5%
Leominster	267	59	0	3,543	7.5%
Fitchburg	202	49	0	3,424	5.9%
Westminster	187	46	0	599	31.2%
Gardner	97	22	0	1,546	6.3%
Templeton	100	27	0	363	27.5%
Athol	41	7	1	733	5.6%
Orange	26	6	0	68	38.2%
Gill	55	19	1	88	62.5%
Greenfield	203	35	1	1,313	15.5%
Shelburne	76	18	1	153	49.7%
Charlemont	30	6	2	54	55.6%
Florida	21	4	0	31	67.7%
North Adams (partial)	19	8	0	944	2.0%

Belmont (14), Phillipston (12), Erving (15), Clarksburg (7), Buckland (6), Savoy (5), Boxborough (4) and Wendell (1) make up the rest.

Five things in the table are worth reading closely.

In Harvard, Route 2 is more than four in ten crashes. The town recorded 558 crashes in three years and 243 of them, 43.5 percent, were on the highway: 68 in 2022, 101 in 2023 and 74 in 2024. None was fatal, and the town recorded no fatal crash anywhere in the period. Westminster (31.2 percent), Templeton (27.5 percent) and Lancaster (25.5 percent) are the other eastern towns where the highway is a quarter or more of the record. Two of Lancaster’s six fatal crashes were on Route 2.

In the hill towns the road is most of the record. Route 2 is 21 of the 31 crashes recorded in Florida, 55 of 88 in Gill, 30 of 54 in Charlemont and 76 of 153 in Shelburne. Both of Charlemont’s fatal crashes in the period, and the only fatal crash in each of Gill and Shelburne, were on the road.

Greenfield has the most crashes in the west, and they are town crashes. Its 203 are 40 percent of the western total. Route 2 meets Interstate 91 in Greenfield, and the western section recorded 26 crashes at a traffic circle. One of the city’s four fatal crashes was on the road. See the Greenfield crash report and the Interstate 91 crash data.

Leominster and Concord carry the most in the east. Leominster recorded 267 and Concord 233. Both counts fell each year: Leominster 101, 88 and 78, and Concord 92, 79 and 62. Westminster fell from 74 and 70 to 43 while Templeton, the next town west, rose from 25 and 29 to 46. The records carry no traffic volume and no construction history, and they do not say why. These are reported as patterns in the count and nothing more. Town reports for Leominster, Concord, Fitchburg, Gardner, Littleton, Acton, Lexington and Arlington carry the local numbers.

Lexington and Acton sit at opposite ends on injuries. Sixteen of Lexington’s 126 Route 2 crashes (12.7 percent) involved an injury, and 29 of Acton’s 77 (37.7 percent). Both are small counts, injury is a field an officer fills in, and the records do not explain the gap. For Cambridge, where the road is under 1 percent of the city’s crashes, see the Cambridge crash report and the page on Cambridge auto accidents.

Answer Capsule

MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024 place 2,552 crashes on Route 2 in Massachusetts, counted on eight road-inventory names from Cambridge to Clarksburg: 871, 892 and 789 by year. Eleven were fatal and 594, or 23.3 percent, involved a non-fatal injury, the same share as all principal arterial crashes. The road divides at Phillipston. The eastern highway recorded 2,047 crashes and 5 fatal ones, 2.44 per 1,000, with 41.0 percent single vehicle crashes, 17.1 percent guardrail strikes and 9.8 percent of its crashes in the 7 a.m. hour. The western road, the Mohawk Trail and French King Highway, recorded 505 crashes and 6 fatal ones, 11.88 per 1,000, a small count, all six of them collisions between vehicles and four head-on. Leominster (267), Harvard (243), Concord (233) and Greenfield (203) recorded the most. In Harvard the highway is 43.5 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 Route 2

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

The rule on a two-way road is to keep right. M.G.L. c. 89, sec. 1 provides that when persons traveling with vehicles meet on a way, “each shall reasonably drive his vehicle to the right of the middle of the traveled part of such way, so that the vehicles may pass without interference.” A head-on crash almost always means one vehicle was left of the middle. That is evidence of negligence, and it is where the claim starts, not where it ends: the driver who crossed may have been avoiding an animal, sliding on ice or reacting to a third vehicle, and each of those changes who is responsible.

Your own policy pays first. 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.” On a road where four in ten crashes involve one vehicle, that matters. A passenger in a car that hit a guardrail has PIP, and may also have a claim against the driver. See whether Massachusetts is a no-fault state.

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. See how partial fault works.

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 Fitchburg resident hit in Concord by a driver from Boston has a choice between Worcester County and Suffolk County. The fact that the crash was in Middlesex County decides nothing by itself. If neither party lives in Massachusetts, which happens on a road that visitors drive for the scenery, the statute allows the action in any county. The venue guides for Middlesex County, Worcester County and western Massachusetts list 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.

One more statute 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, and the stretch is a state highway, c. 81, sec. 18 makes the Commonwealth liable for defects “within the limits of the constructed traveled roadway,” 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 350 crashes in the eastern section began with a guardrail, the railing exception is the part people do not expect.

What to Do After a Crash on Route 2

1. Get out of the travel lanes if the vehicle moves. Almost one in five crashes on the eastern section happens in the dark on unlighted road, and a stopped car is hard to see.
2. Call 911. East of Phillipston the State Police wrote 97 percent of the reports. West of it the local department usually responds. Ask which agency is writing the report and get the report number before the officer 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, the center line and the nearest mile marker or street sign. In an opposite-direction crash, where each vehicle ended up relative to the middle of the road is the first question anyone will ask.
5. Get the names of witnesses. In a head-on crash the two drivers often give opposite accounts, and sometimes one of them cannot give any.
6. 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.
7. Notify your own insurer promptly, and do not give a recorded statement to another driver’s insurer before you understand the claim.
8. If an animal was involved, say so in the crash report and to your insurer. 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.

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 one section than the other. The fatal rate is deaths per recorded crash, which describes how crashes end, not how often they happen.
• Why the western crashes are different. The record says four of six fatal crashes were head-on. It does not record the road’s width, its curves, whether a median existed at the spot or what either driver was doing.
• The stretches under shared names. Route 2 in Williamstown, most of North Adams, and the Boston and Cambridge parkways are not counted.
• Ramps and interchanges. Crashes on ramps carry ramp names in the road inventory and are left out. Ramp crashes at the Interstate 495 interchange, and crashes mile-marked to Route 2 but mapped onto Interstate 190, are not in these totals.
• Cause. The first harmful event says what the vehicle hit, not why.
• Anything after 2024. These are the three most recent complete years in the open data.

For the wider picture, see the north central Massachusetts crash data, the Middlesex County crash data, the Worcester County crash data and the western Massachusetts crash data. For other roads counted the same way, see Route 3, Interstate 91 and Interstate 95, and for the roads that cross this one, Interstate 495 and Route 128. 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.
• Head-on crash: a crash in which two vehicles traveling in opposite directions strike each other front to front.
• Principal arterial: the road class MassDOT assigns to major through routes that are not Interstates, and the class Route 2 belongs to.
• 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.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How many crashes happen on Route 2 in Massachusetts each year?

A: MassDOT records show 871 in 2022, 892 in 2023 and 789 in 2024, a total of 2,552 on the eight road-inventory names that carry Route 2. Eleven were fatal and 594 involved a non-fatal injury. Ramp crashes and the stretches on shared street names are not included.

Q: Is Route 2 a dangerous road?

A: The records cannot rank it, because they do not include traffic volume. Per recorded crash, the injury share (23.3 percent) matches other principal arterials. The fatal rate differs sharply by section: 2.44 per 1,000 crashes between Cambridge and Phillipston and 11.88 between Athol and Clarksburg, the second figure resting on six fatal crashes.

Q: Where on Route 2 do the fatal crashes happen?

A: From 2022 through 2024, five were on the eastern highway (two in Lancaster and one each in Littleton, Concord and Lexington) and six on the western road (two in Charlemont and one each in Athol, Greenfield, Gill and Shelburne). All six western fatal crashes were collisions between vehicles, four of them head-on.

Q: Which town has the most crashes on Route 2?

A: Leominster, with 267, followed by Harvard (243), Concord (233), Greenfield (203), Lancaster (202) and Fitchburg (202). Measured against each town’s own total, the road matters most in Florida (67.7 percent of all recorded crashes), Gill (62.5 percent), Charlemont (55.6 percent) and Shelburne (49.7 percent), and in the east in Harvard (43.5 percent).

Q: What time of day do most Route 2 crashes happen?

A: On the eastern highway the peak is the morning commute. The hour from 7 to 8 a.m. holds 9.8 percent of that section’s crashes, and 6 to 9 a.m. holds almost a quarter, more than the 3 to 6 p.m. period.

Q: Who is at fault in a head-on crash on Route 2?

A: M.G.L. c. 89, sec. 1 requires each driver meeting another to keep to the right of the middle of the traveled way, so the driver who crossed the middle usually starts with the fault. It is not automatic. Under c. 231, sec. 85 fault is divided by percentage, and the reason a vehicle crossed, such as ice, an animal or another driver’s move, is part of that question.

Q: If I was hurt on Route 2 in Concord, do I have to sue in Middlesex 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: How long do I have to bring a claim after a crash on Route 2?

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 under c. 84, sec. 18.

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 Route 2 can mean a guardrail and a State Police report number in Harvard at seven in the morning, or two cars and two different stories on the Mohawk Trail on a clear afternoon. 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.