How Dangerous Are Suffolk County Roads? Three Years of Massachusetts Crash Data

Across the four cities and towns of Suffolk County, Massachusetts recorded 23,143 crashes from 2022 through 2024, including 78 fatal crashes, 6,051 crashes involving injury, 347 involving a bicycle, and 702 involving a pedestrian. That is 5.7 percent of every crash in the Commonwealth but 11.7 percent of every crash that struck someone on foot. Measured as pedestrian crashes per 1,000 crashes, the county runs at 30.33 against a statewide 14.76, which is 2.05 times the state figure and the highest this series has measured. The obvious explanation is Boston, and the obvious explanation is wrong. Boston holds 75.2 percent of the county’s crashes and is first in Massachusetts for pedestrian crashes outright at 491, yet Boston’s pedestrian ratio is 28.21 and the other three communities together run 36.79. Chelsea alone runs 44.52, which is fourth among all 189 Massachusetts communities with at least 500 crashes on record. Severity runs the opposite way: the county’s fatal ratio of 3.37 per 1,000 is essentially Boston’s, and Chelsea, Revere and Winthrop together sit at 2.27, below the statewide 2.68. Every figure below comes from MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024 and can be checked against the town pages in the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a crash anywhere in Boston, Chelsea, Revere or Winthrop, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.

The Four Communities, and Where the Numbers Come From

Suffolk County is the smallest county in Massachusetts by number of municipalities and one of the largest by everything else. It contains exactly four: Boston, Chelsea, Revere and Winthrop.

The crash counts come from MassDOT’s open crash data, the record built from Massachusetts crash reports, covering calendar years 2022, 2023 and 2024. That includes the fatal counts, which come from the same MassDOT records rather than from any federal dataset. The road-level counts further down are for 2024, the most recent complete year, because road naming in the source data shifts enough year over year that stacking three years of it produces noise rather than signal.

For scale, the same three years produced 405,245 crashes statewide, 1,087 fatal crashes, 92,759 crashes involving injury, 4,356 involving a bicycle, and 5,980 involving a pedestrian.

One caution, stated up front rather than buried. Every comparison here is crash to crash, not crash per resident, not crash per mile driven, and not crash per person walking. A city with more crashes may simply have more traffic passing through it, and Suffolk County absorbs an enormous volume of traffic that begins and ends somewhere else. That is a genuine limitation. It is also why the ratio comparisons in this piece, which hold crash volume constant, carry more information than the raw counts.

Where the Volume Is

Community	Crashes	Fatal	Injury	Bicycle	Pedestrian	Statewide crash rank
Boston	17,407	65	4,533	273	491	1st of 349
Chelsea	2,920	7	724	39	130	32nd
Revere	2,298	6	712	27	75	40th
Winthrop	518	0	82	8	6	188th

Boston is first in Massachusetts on three of those columns at once: total crashes, fatal crashes, and pedestrian crashes. It is second on bicycle crashes, behind Cambridge, which recorded 384 to Boston’s 273 and is the state’s bicycle-crash leader despite having barely a quarter of Boston’s total crash volume.

Full three-year figures are published at Boston, Chelsea and Revere. Winthrop does not have its own page: the crash report gives a town its own page at 800 crashes over the three years, and Winthrop recorded 518.

Answer Capsule

Suffolk County, Massachusetts recorded 23,143 crashes across its four municipalities from 2022 through 2024, per MassDOT crash records: 78 fatal, 6,051 involving injury, 347 involving a bicycle, and 702 involving a pedestrian. That is 5.7 percent of the statewide three-year total of 405,245 crashes but 11.7 percent of the state’s 5,980 pedestrian crashes and 8.0 percent of its 4,356 bicycle crashes. The county’s pedestrian ratio is 30.33 per 1,000 crashes against a statewide 14.76, which is 2.05 times the state figure and the highest measured in this series; its bicycle ratio is 14.99 against 10.75, its injury ratio 261.46 against 228.90, and its fatal ratio 3.37 against 2.68. Boston is the busiest crash location in Massachusetts at 17,407 crashes, first in the state for fatal crashes at 65 and first for pedestrian crashes at 491, and holds 75.2 percent of the county’s total. Boston is not, however, where the county’s pedestrian exposure concentrates: Boston’s pedestrian ratio is 28.21 while Chelsea, Revere and Winthrop together run 36.79. Chelsea’s 44.52 is fourth among all 189 Massachusetts communities with at least 500 recorded crashes, behind only Brookline, Salem and Cambridge. Revere’s injury ratio of 309.83 per 1,000 is tenth in that same group. Winthrop recorded zero fatal crashes across the three years on 518 crashes, one of only eleven Massachusetts communities with at least 500 crashes to do so. The highest 2024 count for a single named road in the county was Interstate 93 southbound in Boston at 219, which is 61.0 percent of that road’s 359 crashes statewide, followed by Interstate 93 northbound in Boston at 198 and Storrow Drive at 95. Civil cases are heard in Suffolk County Superior Court at 3 Pemberton Square in Boston, which serves all four communities, or below the amount in controversy set by M.G.L. c. 212, sec. 3 in one of the eight divisions of the Boston Municipal Court or, for Chelsea and Revere, in Chelsea District Court at 120 Broadway. Call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the first telephone consultation is free.

The County That Hits People on Foot

Set the five vulnerable-user measures side by side and one of them is not like the others.

Measure, per 1,000 crashes	Suffolk County	Statewide	County vs state
Fatal	3.37	2.68	1.26 times
Injury	261.46	228.90	1.14 times
Bicycle	14.99	10.75	1.39 times
Pedestrian	30.33	14.76	2.05 times

Fatal and injury run modestly above the state. Bicycle runs meaningfully above. Pedestrian runs at double, and it is not close to any other measure on the table.

In absolute terms: one in every nine Massachusetts crashes that struck a pedestrian over those three years happened inside a county that produced one in every eighteen crashes overall. There is no county in this series that comes close to that spread, and the sibling pieces on Middlesex, Norfolk and Plymouth counties all record pedestrian ratios below the statewide figure rather than above it.

Take Boston Out and It Gets Worse

The natural assumption is that this is a Boston number wearing a county label. Boston is three quarters of the county’s crashes, it is first in Massachusetts for pedestrian crashes outright, and its downtown is as dense with people on foot as anywhere in New England.

The data does not support the assumption. Ranked by pedestrian crashes per 1,000 crashes, the four communities run:

Community	Pedestrian crashes	Crashes	Per 1,000
Chelsea	130	2,920	44.52
Revere	75	2,298	32.64
Boston	491	17,407	28.21
Winthrop	6	518	11.58

Boston is third of four. Strip Boston out entirely and the remaining three communities produced 211 pedestrian crashes on 5,736 crashes, a ratio of 36.79 against Boston’s 28.21 and against the statewide 14.76.

Chelsea’s figure is the one that stands out statewide. Among the 189 Massachusetts communities with at least 500 recorded crashes over the three years, Chelsea’s 44.52 pedestrian crashes per 1,000 ranks fourth, behind Brookline at 60.11, Salem at 51.28 and Cambridge at 46.08, and just ahead of Lynn at 44.12. Revere’s 32.64 ranks ninth in the same group and Boston’s 28.21 ranks tenth. Three of the top ten pedestrian-exposure communities in Massachusetts are in this one four-town county.

What that pattern has in common is not downtown density. It is dense residential street grids carrying arterial traffic that is trying to get somewhere else, which is a fair description of Everett Avenue and Broadway in Chelsea and of Broadway and North Shore Road in Revere. A pedestrian claim arising on that kind of road is a different case from one arising in a downtown crosswalk, and the pedestrian accident rights article covers what a person struck on foot in Massachusetts is entitled to.

Where the Severity Actually Sits

Having said Boston is not the pedestrian story, it is squarely the severity story.

Community	Fatal	Crashes	Fatal per 1,000
Boston	65	17,407	3.73
Revere	6	2,298	2.61
Chelsea	7	2,920	2.40
Winthrop	0	518	0.00

The county’s 3.37 is Boston’s 3.73 diluted by three communities that all sit at or below the statewide 2.68. Take Boston out and the other three run 2.27, which is 15 percent better than the state.

Boston’s 65 fatal crashes over three years is the highest raw count of any Massachusetts community. Its ratio of 3.73 per 1,000 is high but not extreme; several of the smaller communities in the Hampden and Plymouth county pieces run well above it. What is unusual about Boston is that it carries a high ratio at enormous volume, which is a harder combination than either one alone.

Revere and the Injury Rate

One more figure is worth separating out, because it belongs to a single city rather than to the county.

Revere recorded 712 crashes involving injury on 2,298 crashes, a ratio of 309.83 per 1,000. That is tenth among the 189 Massachusetts communities with at least 500 crashes, in a group led by Brockton at 352.9, Springfield at 340.5 and Westfield at 338.5. Boston, by comparison, runs 260.41 and Chelsea 247.95, both close to the county’s 261.46.

Revere is therefore a city where a smaller number of crashes hurts people more often, while its fatal ratio of 2.61 sits below the statewide figure. More injuries, fewer deaths. That is the profile of arterial roads carrying moderate speeds through populated ground rather than either stop-and-go downtown traffic or open highway.

Winthrop’s Zero

Winthrop recorded no fatal crashes at all from 2022 through 2024, on 518 crashes and 82 injuries.

That deserves stating carefully. Eleven Massachusetts communities with at least 500 recorded crashes went the full three years without a fatal one, and Winthrop is the smallest of the eleven by crash count, so the result is partly a small denominator. But it is not nothing. Winthrop’s injury ratio of 158.30 per 1,000 is also far below the county’s 261.46 and the state’s 228.90, and its pedestrian ratio of 11.58 is the only one in the county below the statewide figure. A peninsula with one road in and no through traffic produces a different crash profile from its neighbours, and the data reflects it.

The Roads

Road-level detail is available for the three communities clearing the dataset’s 800-crash threshold. These are 2024 counts, the most recent complete year.

Boston:

Road	2024 crashes
Interstate 93 southbound	219
Interstate 93 northbound	198
Storrow Drive	95
Massachusetts Turnpike, Interstate 90 westbound	67
Massachusetts Turnpike, Interstate 90 eastbound	54
William T. Morrissey Boulevard	47
Soldiers Field Road	37
Maurice Tobin Bridge, Route 1 southbound	29

Statewide in 2024, Interstate 93 northbound recorded 444 crashes across every community it passes through, fourth among all named roads in Massachusetts, and Interstate 93 southbound recorded 359, eighth. Boston’s segment holds 198 of the 444 northbound and 219 of the 359 southbound, so 61.0 percent of every southbound crash on Interstate 93 in Massachusetts happened inside the city limits. The corridor as a whole is covered in the Interstate 93 crash data piece.

Storrow Drive at 95 crashes in a single year is the highest count for any non-interstate road in the county, on a parkway with low clearances, tight merges and no shoulder for most of its length.

Chelsea:

Road	2024 crashes
Everett Avenue	58
Broadway	55
Eastern Avenue	25
Washington Avenue	22
Webster Avenue	16
Route 16 westbound	15
Route 16 eastbound	14
Beacham Street	12

Revere:

Road	2024 crashes
Broadway	66
North Shore Road	36
Squire Road	29
Northeast Expressway, Route 1 northbound	18
Route 1 northbound	17
Lee Burbank Highway	17
Revere Street	16
Revere Beach Boulevard	15

Two things stand out about the Chelsea and Revere lists next to Boston’s. Neither city’s worst road is an interstate. And both are led by surface streets running through the residential grid, which is consistent with those cities carrying the county’s highest pedestrian ratios.

Which Court Would Hear the Case

Suffolk County has an unusual court structure, because Boston has its own trial court department that no other Massachusetts city has.

Suffolk County Superior Court sits at the Suffolk County Courthouse, 3 Pemberton Square, Boston. Mass.gov states that it “serves Boston, Winthrop, Chelsea, and Revere,” so every community in the county files there for cases above the Superior Court threshold. Under M.G.L. c. 212, sec. 3, a civil action for money damages “may proceed in the court only if there is no reasonable likelihood that recovery by the plaintiff will be less than or equal to $25,000, or an amount ordered from time to time by the supreme judicial court,” and a 2019 standing order of the Supreme Judicial Court raised that figure to $50,000 for actions commenced on or after January 1, 2020.

Below that line, the county splits in two.

Chelsea and Revere are served by Chelsea District Court at 120 Broadway, Chelsea. Mass.gov states that this court “serves Chelsea and Revere.” Winthrop, despite being neither in Boston nor served by Chelsea District Court, goes to the Boston Municipal Court.

The Boston Municipal Court is made up of eight divisions, which mass.gov describes as covering:

• Brighton: Brighton and Allston
• Central: the downtown Boston area, Chinatown, North End, West End, South End through Massachusetts Avenue, and Beacon Hill
• Charlestown: Charlestown
• Dorchester: Dorchester
• East Boston: East Boston, Winthrop, Logan Airport, and the Sumner and Callahan Tunnels
• Roxbury: Roxbury
• South Boston: South Boston
• West Roxbury: West Roxbury, Hyde Park, Roslindale, Jamaica Plain, parts of Mission Hill, and parts of Mattapan

Two practical consequences follow. A crash in the Sumner or Callahan Tunnel, or on the Logan Airport roadways, is an East Boston Division matter rather than a Central Division one. And a Winthrop resident’s District Court level case is heard in East Boston, not in Chelsea, even though Chelsea District Court is the nearer courthouse for much of the county.

On the money limits, mass.gov puts Boston Municipal Court civil jurisdiction at “contract and tort actions where the likely recovery isn’t more than $50,000 (for cases commenced on or after January 1, 2020)” and small claims at “not more than $7,000.”

There is also a venue rule specific to this county that catches people out. Mass.gov notes that under M.G.L. c. 218, sec. 54 a civil action seeking money damages may be filed in the Central Division of the Boston Municipal Court if a defendant lives or has a usual place of business in Suffolk County, “excluding Chelsea and Revere.” The two cities with the county’s highest pedestrian exposure are the two the Central Division venue rule leaves out.

None of this decides where a given case should actually be brought, which turns on the amount in controversy, on where the parties live or do business, and on strategy. It is worth knowing before a filing deadline rather than after one.

What This Means If You Were in a Crash Here

The county data supports a few concrete points for someone dealing with an insurer after a Suffolk County crash.

If you were struck on foot, you are in the part of Massachusetts where that happens most, and being hit in Chelsea or Revere rather than downtown Boston does not make it an unusual event. Insurers sometimes treat a pedestrian struck outside a marked crosswalk as effectively at fault. Massachusetts law does not work that way: fault is apportioned, and a person can recover as long as their own share is not greater than the defendant’s, which is set out in the comparative negligence article.

If the crash happened on Interstate 93, Storrow Drive, the Turnpike or the Tobin Bridge, expect a dispute about who changed lanes and when. The state police rather than a municipal department will usually hold the report, and the timeline for getting it differs. What has to be reported and when is covered in reporting a car accident in Massachusetts.

If the other driver’s insurer is already calling, note that nothing obliges you to give them a recorded account before you understand your own injuries. That is dealt with in recorded statements.

For the local practice detail, including the venues and hospitals that come up in these files, see the Boston pages for auto accidents, bicycle accidents and truck accidents, and the Revere page for auto accidents.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How many car accidents happen in Suffolk County, Massachusetts? A: 23,143 over the three years 2022 through 2024, per MassDOT crash records, across the county’s four municipalities. Of those, 78 were fatal, 6,051 involved an injury, 347 involved a bicycle and 702 involved a pedestrian. Boston accounts for 17,407 of the total, or 75.2 percent, followed by Chelsea at 2,920, Revere at 2,298 and Winthrop at 518. For scale, Massachusetts as a whole recorded 405,245 crashes over the same period, so Suffolk County holds 5.7 percent of the state total.

Q: Which city in Suffolk County has the most pedestrian accidents? A: Boston by raw count, with 491 pedestrian crashes over the three years, which is the highest of any community in Massachusetts. Measured against crash volume, though, Boston is third of the county’s four. Chelsea runs 44.52 pedestrian crashes per 1,000 crashes, Revere 32.64, Boston 28.21 and Winthrop 11.58, against a statewide figure of 14.76. Chelsea’s ratio is fourth among all 189 Massachusetts communities with at least 500 recorded crashes.

Q: What are the most dangerous roads in Suffolk County? A: By 2024 crash count, Interstate 93 through Boston, in both directions, at 219 southbound and 198 northbound. Storrow Drive follows at 95, then the Massachusetts Turnpike at 67 westbound and 54 eastbound, William T. Morrissey Boulevard at 47, Soldiers Field Road at 37 and the Tobin Bridge at 29 southbound. In Chelsea the leaders are Everett Avenue at 58 and Broadway at 55; in Revere, Broadway at 66, North Shore Road at 36 and Squire Road at 29. These are crash counts and not rates per vehicle, so a road carrying more traffic will tend to appear higher.

Q: Is Boston the most dangerous city in Massachusetts for driving? A: It records the most crashes and the most fatal crashes of any Massachusetts community, 17,407 and 65 over the three years, both first in the state. Measured as a ratio, its 3.73 fatal crashes per 1,000 is above the statewide 2.68 but well below the worst communities in the state, several of which are small towns in Hampden and Plymouth counties. The data does not support calling any single community the most dangerous without saying which measure is meant, and none of these counts adjusts for how much traffic each place carries.

Q: Which court would hear a Suffolk County car accident case? A: Suffolk County Superior Court at 3 Pemberton Square in Boston serves all four communities and hears cases above the threshold in M.G.L. c. 212, sec. 3, which a 2019 Supreme Judicial Court standing order set at $50,000 for actions commenced on or after January 1, 2020. Below that, Chelsea and Revere cases go to Chelsea District Court at 120 Broadway in Chelsea, and Boston and Winthrop cases go to the relevant division of the Boston Municipal Court. Winthrop is served by the East Boston Division, which also covers Logan Airport and the Sumner and Callahan Tunnels.

Q: Why does Winthrop have no fatal crashes? A: Winthrop recorded 518 crashes from 2022 through 2024 and none of them was fatal. Eleven Massachusetts communities with at least 500 crashes over that period recorded zero fatal ones, and Winthrop has the smallest crash count of the eleven, so part of the answer is simply that the number of chances was low. Its other figures point the same way, though: an injury ratio of 158.30 per 1,000 against a county figure of 261.46, and the only pedestrian ratio in the county below the statewide average. A peninsula carrying almost no through traffic produces a different crash profile from its neighbours.

Q: Where does this crash data come from? A: MassDOT’s open crash data, the public record built from Massachusetts crash reports, covering calendar years 2022, 2023 and 2024. Fatal counts come from the same MassDOT records. Town-level totals and the road-level counts, which are for 2024 alone, are published for every Massachusetts community clearing the dataset’s threshold at the Massachusetts crash report, and the underlying figures can be checked there against the town pages for Boston, Chelsea and Revere.

Q: Is Jimmy Knows AI giving me legal advice? A: No. This is general information about Massachusetts law and public Massachusetts crash data, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Whether any of it applies to your situation depends on facts that are not in this article. To have someone look at the actual facts, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.