What Makes a Massachusetts Truck Accident Claim Different?

A collision with a commercial truck in Massachusetts is not simply a larger car accident. It runs on a second rulebook. The Registry of Motor Vehicles wrote the federal motor carrier rules into Massachusetts law at 540 CMR 14.03, which incorporates them “in both intrastate and interstate commerce”, so they reach a truck that never leaves the Commonwealth. That rulebook changes three things an ordinary car case does not have. The insurance floor is a different order of magnitude: Massachusetts compulsory bodily injury coverage is “not less than $25,000” per person under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34A as amended for policies issued or renewed on or after July 1, 2025, while 49 C.F.R. 387.9 sets $750,000 as the minimum for an interstate for-hire carrier hauling ordinary freight in a vehicle rated 10,001 pounds or more. The carrier is already required to keep the records that often decide the case, listed in 540 CMR 14.04(3). And the retention clock on the most important of those records is six months under 49 C.F.R. 395.8(k)(1), not the three years you have to file suit under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2A. This is general information about Massachusetts law and not legal advice. To talk through a truck collision with a Massachusetts attorney, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the first telephone consultation is free.

A Truck Crash Runs on Two Rulebooks

Massachusetts law treats every motor vehicle collision the same way at the start. Personal injury protection pays the first medical bills without anyone deciding fault, the pain and suffering threshold in M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 6D has to be cleared before a claim for that harm can go forward, and comparative negligence apportions responsibility at the end. Those rules do not change because the other vehicle was large. Everything covered in how fault is determined after a Massachusetts car accident still applies.

What changes is that a commercial truck brings a second body of law with it, and that second body of law is unusually generous to someone trying to reconstruct what happened. Motor carriers operate under written duties. They are required to qualify drivers on paper, to cap how long those drivers may work, to inspect and maintain equipment on a schedule, to test for drugs and alcohol, to keep a register of their own crashes, and to carry insurance in amounts that make the ordinary Massachusetts compulsory policy look like a rounding error. Each of those duties leaves a document behind.

The practical consequence is that a truck case is won or lost on records much earlier than an ordinary car case is. There is far more to ask for, and far less time in which some of it is required to exist.

Massachusetts Adopted the Federal Rules as Its Own

The most common misconception about truck crashes is that the federal safety rules are a distant thing that only matters if the truck crossed a state line. In Massachusetts that is not how it works.

The Registrar of Motor Vehicles adopted 540 CMR 14.00 under M.G.L. c. 90, secs. 19L and 31. Section 14.03 of that regulation is the operative provision. It states that the listed federal rules “are incorporated as the regulations of the Registry of Motor Vehicles governing motor carrier safety and the transportation of hazardous materials upon the ways of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in both intrastate and interstate commerce”.

The list is long. It brings in Part 382 on controlled substances and alcohol testing, Part 383 on commercial driver licensing, Part 387 on minimum levels of financial responsibility, Part 390 on general motor carrier rules, Part 391 on driver qualifications, Part 392 on the driving of commercial motor vehicles, Part 393 on parts and accessories necessary for safe operation, Part 395 on hours of service, Part 396 on inspection, repair and maintenance, and Part 397 on hazardous materials driving and parking.

Section 14.04(1) then puts the duty in plain terms: “Every motor carrier operating in intrastate or interstate commerce, or both, upon the public ways of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts shall comply with” those federal regulations, along with the Massachusetts licensing and registration statutes and M.G.L. c. 90F on the operation of commercial vehicles.

Massachusetts did write some exemptions for purely intrastate operators, and it is worth knowing how narrow they are. 540 CMR 14.05(1) exempts intrastate drivers from exactly three things: the requirement in 49 CFR 391.11(b)(1) that a driver be 21 or older, the requirement in 49 CFR 391.11(b)(2) that a driver read and speak English, subject to its own carve-outs for permits and licenses issued after March 9, 2018 and for hazardous materials drivers, and the federal waiver procedure in 49 CFR 391.49 for certain physical conditions, which the Registrar handles instead. Hours of service is not on that list. Inspection and maintenance is not on that list. Driver qualification files are not on that list.

Two more provisions are worth carrying into any conversation about a Massachusetts truck case. Section 14.07 provides that “in the event of a conflict between 540 CMR 14.00 and any other regulation or law of the Commonwealth, the stricter, more stringent standard shall apply”. And section 14.08 limits enforcement to officers who have completed federal motor carrier training, providing that the regulation “shall be enforced only by police officers of the Commonwealth who have satisfactorily completed a course of instruction in Federal Motor Carrier Safety regulations, safety inspection procedures, and out-of-service criteria”, with annual recertification. That last one explains something people often find confusing after a crash: the officer who wrote the ordinary crash report may not have been the officer qualified to inspect the truck.

The Weight Line Is Lower Than People Expect

Nothing in this area applies because a vehicle looks big. It applies because the vehicle meets a definition, and the definition catches a lot of vehicles that nobody would call a tractor-trailer.

Under 540 CMR 14.02(2)(a), a commercial motor vehicle means, among other things, “a motor vehicle with a gross vehicle weight rating or gross combination weight rating of 10,001 pounds or more used for the transportation of property”, or “a motor vehicle designed to transport more than 15 passengers, including the driver”, or a vehicle carrying hazardous materials in a quantity requiring placarding.

Three details in that definition do most of the work.

Rating, not weight. Gross vehicle weight rating is what the manufacturer says the vehicle is built to carry, not what it weighed on the day of the crash. A half-empty truck does not fall out of the definition because it was half empty.

Combination. Gross combination weight rating counts the tractor and what it is pulling. A pickup that is comfortably under the line by itself can be over it with a loaded equipment trailer behind it.

Property. The 10,001 pound branch applies to vehicles used to transport property. A commercial van hauling materials to a job site is transporting property.

Section 14.02(2)(b) then ties the Massachusetts definition to the federal one, stating that the term “shall have the same meaning as in Part 390.5 of Title 49 Code of Federal Regulations and, to the extent there is a conflict between the two at any time, the definition in 49 CFR Part 390.5 shall control”. The federal definition at 49 C.F.R. 390.5 reaches a vehicle that “Has a gross vehicle weight rating or gross combination weight rating, or gross vehicle weight or gross combination weight, of 4,536 kg (10,001 pounds) or more, whichever is greater”, and also reaches vehicles designed or used to carry more than 8 passengers for compensation.

If the vehicle that hit you was a delivery truck, a dump truck, a box truck, a bucket truck, a flatbed, a tow truck, or a heavy contractor rig with a trailer, the question of whether this rulebook applies is a real one and not an obvious no.

The Insurance Floor Is a Different Order of Magnitude

This is the part of a truck case that most changes what is actually collectible, and it is worth stating precisely because the two numbers come from different systems.

On the Massachusetts side, a motor vehicle liability policy issued or renewed on or after July 1, 2025 must provide bodily injury coverage of “not less than $25,000 on account of injury to or death of any one person” and, subject to that per person limit, “not less than $50,000 on account of any one accident resulting in injury to or death of more than one person”. Those figures come from M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34A as amended by St. 2024, c. 275, which raised the older twenty and forty thousand dollar limits. That compulsory floor is the reason uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage matters so much in ordinary Massachusetts crashes, and why being hit by someone with no coverage at all leads down the separate path described in no insurance and not at fault.

On the federal side, 49 C.F.R. 387.7(a) provides that “No motor carrier shall operate a motor vehicle until the motor carrier has obtained and has in effect the minimum levels of financial responsibility” set forth in section 387.9 of that subpart. The schedule at 49 C.F.R. 387.9 then sets the amounts. For a for-hire carrier operating in interstate or foreign commerce with a gross vehicle weight rating of 10,001 or more pounds, hauling nonhazardous property, the minimum is $750,000. Carriers hauling the listed hazardous substances in bulk face $5,000,000, and a middle category of hazardous materials and oil carries $1,000,000. For-hire passenger carriers in interstate or foreign commerce are covered separately by 49 C.F.R. 387.33(a), which sets $5,000,000 for “Any vehicle with a seating capacity of 16 passengers or more, including the driver” and $1,500,000 for “Any vehicle with a seating capacity of 15 passengers or less, including the driver”.

Proof of that financial responsibility is a specific document. Under 49 C.F.R. 387.7(d), the carrier must keep proof at its principal place of business, and the ordinary form of that proof is the Form MCS-90 endorsement issued by the insurer, or a Form MCS-82 surety bond, or written authorization from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to self-insure.

Two cautions belong with those numbers, and both cut against the way this subject is usually marketed.

First, a minimum level of financial responsibility is a floor on what a carrier must carry. It says nothing about what a claim is worth. Value in Massachusetts is decided by the injury, the medical evidence, the wage loss and the permanency, which is the subject of the separate discussion of how a Massachusetts car accident case is valued. A large policy behind a minor injury does not make the injury larger.

Second, the $750,000 figure in the schedule is written for for-hire carriage in interstate or foreign commerce. Massachusetts reaches the intrastate side through its record-keeping rule rather than by rewriting the federal schedule: 540 CMR 14.04(3)(a) requires every motor carrier, “whether engaging in intrastate or interstate operation”, to maintain records complying with “49 CFR Part 387 relating to minimum levels of financial responsibility for a motor carrier engaged in interstate or foreign commerce or intrastate commerce”. Whether and how a particular intrastate operator’s obligations shake out is a fact question, and it is one worth asking about early rather than assuming in either direction.

The Records That Are Supposed to Exist Already

The single most useful thing about the motor carrier rules for an injured person is that they require a paper trail to be created before anyone knows a crash is coming.

540 CMR 14.04(3) states that “At a minimum, a motor carrier, whether engaging in intrastate or interstate operation, must maintain records in the regular course of business that comply with” a list that includes:

• Financial responsibility. “49 CFR Part 387 relating to minimum levels of financial responsibility for a motor carrier engaged in interstate or foreign commerce or intrastate commerce”. This is how you learn what coverage actually stands behind the truck.
• Driver qualification. “49 CFR Parts 383, 391, and 392 relating to driver qualification files, including all required forms”. A qualification file is where a carrier’s hiring decision is documented, or is not.
• Drug and alcohol testing. “49 CFR Part 382 relating to drug and alcohol testing records, as applicable”.
• Hours of service. “49 CFR Part 395 relating to hours of service”.
• Inspection and maintenance. “49 CFR Parts 393 and 396 relating to vehicle inspection reports filed by the driver and maintenance records of the vehicle”. Driver vehicle inspection reports are filled out by the driver, which means they sometimes record a defect the carrier did not fix.
• The carrier’s own crash history. “49 CFR Part 390.15 relating to accident registers and copies of all accident reports required by state or other governmental entities or insurers”.

That last one deserves a note, because it is the least known. Under 49 C.F.R. 390.15(b), “Motor carriers must maintain an accident register for 3 years after the date of each accident”, listing for each one the date, the location, the driver’s name, the number of injuries, the number of fatalities and whether hazardous materials were released, together with copies of all accident reports required by state or other governmental entities or insurers. A carrier’s own register is a record of its own history that it was required to compile about itself.

The Clock That Runs Out Long Before Three Years

Here is the practical center of this article, and it is the reason a truck case rewards early attention more than almost any other kind of Massachusetts injury claim.

You have three years to file suit. M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2A provides that actions of tort “shall be commenced only within three years next after the cause of action accrues”, which is the same deadline described in the general discussion of the Massachusetts personal injury statute of limitations.

The carrier does not have three years to keep the records. 49 C.F.R. 395.8(k)(1) provides that “A motor carrier shall retain records of duty status and supporting documents required under this part for each of its drivers for a period of not less than 6 months from the date of receipt”.

Six months. On the exact question that decides a fatigue case, the federal retention floor is one sixth of the time a Massachusetts claimant has to bring the lawsuit. The accident register runs three years under 49 C.F.R. 390.15(b), and maintenance records have their own schedules, but the hours records that would show whether a driver had been on duty past the legal limit sit on the shortest clock of all.

This does not mean the records vanish at month seven. A regulation setting a floor on retention is not permission to destroy anything, and separate legal duties can attach once a party knows a claim is coming. It does mean that the difference between asking in month two and asking in month twenty is potentially the difference between a documented answer and an argument about what a document would have shown.

Hours of Service, in Plain Numbers

Because the hours records are the shortest-lived and the most often decisive, it helps to know what the limits are. For a driver of a property-carrying commercial motor vehicle, 49 C.F.R. 395.3(a) provides:

• A driver “may not drive without first taking 10 consecutive hours off duty”.
• A driver “may not drive after a period of 14 consecutive hours after coming on-duty following 10 consecutive hours off-duty”. This is a window, not a driving budget. Loading, waiting and paperwork all burn it.
• Within that window, “A driver may drive a total of 11 hours”.
• Except for drivers who qualify for a short-haul exception, “driving is not permitted if more than 8 hours of driving time have passed without at least a consecutive 30-minute interruption in driving status”.

The weekly ceilings are in 49 C.F.R. 395.3(b), which bars driving after “Having been on duty 60 hours in any period of 7 consecutive days if the employing motor carrier does not operate commercial motor vehicles every day of the week” or after “Having been on duty 70 hours in any period of 8 consecutive days if the employing motor carrier operates commercial motor vehicles every day of the week”.

Notice that these limits run against the carrier as well as the driver. The rule opens by providing that no motor carrier shall permit or require any driver to drive in violation of them. A dispatch schedule that could only be met by exceeding the limits is itself a fact about the company.

What a Rule Violation Actually Does to a Claim

It is worth being careful here, because this is where legal marketing tends to overstate.

A violation of a safety rule does not decide a Massachusetts case by itself. In Perry v. Medeiros, 369 Mass. 836 (1976), the Supreme Judicial Court restated the settled rule: “The general rule in Massachusetts is that violation of the safety statute or ordinance does not in itself give rise to a cause of action but is evidence of negligence.” The same opinion goes on to explain that while such a violation is not conclusive on the question of civil liability, it “is evidence of negligence on the part of a violator as to all consequences that the statute, ordinance or regulation was intended to prevent”.

Two things follow. A logged hours violation is real evidence that a jury may weigh, and it is not a formality to be waved away by a carrier. It is also not a shortcut around causation. The rule reaches the consequences the rule was meant to prevent, which is why an hours violation matters most in a crash with the signature of fatigue and matters least in a crash caused by something the hours rule has nothing to do with.

Fault is then apportioned the ordinary Massachusetts way, under the modified comparative negligence rule discussed in comparative negligence and partial fault.

Heavy-vehicle collisions concentrate on the limited-access corridors, and the MassDOT crash records show where. The beltway numbers are broken down community by community in Route 128 crash data, and the two radial highways in Interstate 93 crash data and Interstate 495 crash data.

Who Else Can Be Responsible, and the Two Federal Rules That Point Opposite Ways

Truck cases frequently involve more than one company: the driver, the motor carrier, the owner of the tractor, the owner of the trailer, a broker, a shipper, a loader, a maintenance vendor. Two federal provisions get cited constantly in that fight, and they point in opposite directions.

The leasing rule. Under 49 C.F.R. 376.12(c)(1), a written lease of equipment to an authorized carrier “shall provide that the authorized carrier lessee shall have exclusive possession, control, and use of the equipment for the duration of the lease”, and “shall further provide that the authorized carrier lessee shall assume complete responsibility for the operation of the equipment for the duration of the lease”. That language is quoted very often as though it settles whether a carrier answers for an owner-operator’s driving.

It does not settle it, and the regulation says so directly in the next paragraph. 49 C.F.R. 376.12(c)(4) provides that “Nothing in the provisions required by paragraph (c)(1) of this section is intended to affect whether the lessor or driver provided by the lessor is an independent contractor or an employee of the authorized carrier lessee”. Anyone who tells you the leasing rule automatically makes the carrier responsible is skipping the sentence that says otherwise.

A related point is easy to misread. The federal definition of “Employee” at 49 C.F.R. 390.5 does sweep in contractors: it says the term “includes a driver of a commercial motor vehicle (including an independent contractor while in the course of operating a commercial motor vehicle), a mechanic, and a freight handler”. That definition governs who the safety regulations bind. It is not itself a rule of Massachusetts tort law about whose negligence is attributed to whom.

The Graves Amendment. Cutting the other way, 49 U.S.C. 30106 protects companies whose only role was renting or leasing out the vehicle. It provides that such an owner “shall not be liable under the law of any State or political subdivision thereof, by reason of being the owner of the vehicle (or an affiliate of the owner), for harm to persons or property that results or arises out of the use, operation, or possession of the vehicle during the period of the rental or lease”, where the owner is engaged in the trade or business of renting or leasing motor vehicles and “there is no negligence or criminal wrongdoing on the part of the owner (or an affiliate of the owner)”.

Read the conditions rather than the headline. The protection is against liability imposed purely by reason of ownership. It does not cover an owner’s own negligence, and subsection (b) preserves state law “imposing financial responsibility or insurance standards on the owner of a motor vehicle for the privilege of registering and operating a motor vehicle”. A rental company that negligently maintained the truck it rented out is not describing a claim based on being the owner.

Which of these matters in a given case depends on facts that are not visible from the roadside: who held operating authority, whose placard was on the door, who was named on the lease, who employed the driver, who loaded the trailer. That is a large part of what the record request is for.

Massachusetts Law Still Governs Everything Else

None of the federal material displaces the Massachusetts framework. It sits on top of it.

No-fault comes first. Personal injury protection under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34M pays medical expenses and wage loss regardless of fault, on the terms set out in the discussion of Massachusetts PIP benefits. A pedestrian or cyclist struck by a truck is covered by the striking vehicle’s no-fault benefits under the coverage ladder described in pedestrian accident rights.

The threshold still applies. M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 6D allows recovery for pain and suffering only where the reasonable and necessary medical expenses exceed two thousand dollars, or where the injury causes death, or “consists in whole or in part of loss of a body member”, or consists in whole or in part of permanent and serious disfigurement, or produces the specified loss of sight or hearing, or “consists of a fracture”. Heavy-vehicle collisions frequently clear it, but the threshold is a legal test and not an impression. The details are in the serious injury threshold.

Reporting duties are unchanged. The Massachusetts crash reporting obligations described in how to report a car accident in Massachusetts apply to a truck collision the same as any other.

The other insurer’s adjuster is not neutral. Commercial carriers and their insurers typically investigate immediately, sometimes at the scene, with resources an ordinary auto insurer does not deploy. The cautions in dealing with the insurance adjuster and giving a recorded statement apply with more force here, not less.

Where someone died, the claim runs through the wrongful death statute rather than the injured person’s own claim. That structure is set out in Massachusetts wrongful death claims.

What This Means in the First Weeks

Nothing above requires a lawyer to be useful. It suggests a short list of things that are easier to do early than late.

1. Identify the carrier, not just the driver. The name on the door, the U.S. DOT number and the motor carrier number are the identifiers that connect a truck to a regulated company and its insurance.
2. Find out what the vehicle was rated at. Whether the vehicle crosses the 10,001 pound line under 540 CMR 14.02(2)(a) determines whether most of this applies at all.
3. Ask in writing, and ask early. The hours records sit on the six month floor in 49 C.F.R. 395.8(k)(1). The list in 540 CMR 14.04(3) is a reasonable starting map of what should exist.
4. Get medical care documented. The Massachusetts threshold in M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 6D and PIP both run on medical records, and no amount of federal regulation substitutes for treatment records.
5. Do not assume the limits. A carrier subject to 49 C.F.R. 387.9 may carry the minimum or many times the minimum, and there may be more than one policy across more than one company.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does a Massachusetts truck accident claim work differently from a car accident claim?

A: The Massachusetts layer is the same. Personal injury protection under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34M still pays first regardless of fault, the pain and suffering threshold in M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 6D still has to be cleared, and M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2A still gives three years to file suit. What is different is that a second body of law sits on top of it. Massachusetts adopted the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations as its own rules at 540 CMR 14.03, which incorporates them as “the regulations of the Registry of Motor Vehicles governing motor carrier safety and the transportation of hazardous materials upon the ways of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in both intrastate and interstate commerce”. Those rules create duties, records and insurance minimums that have no equivalent in an ordinary two-car case.

Q: What counts as a commercial motor vehicle in Massachusetts?

A: The weight line is lower than most people expect. Under 540 CMR 14.02(2)(a), a commercial motor vehicle includes “a motor vehicle with a gross vehicle weight rating or gross combination weight rating of 10,001 pounds or more used for the transportation of property”, as well as “a motor vehicle designed to transport more than 15 passengers, including the driver”, and vehicles carrying placarded hazardous materials. Gross vehicle weight rating is the manufacturer’s rated capacity, not what the truck happened to weigh that day, and gross combination weight rating counts the trailer. A loaded box truck, a landscaping rig towing an equipment trailer, and a contractor’s heavy pickup can all sit above that line. 540 CMR 14.02(2)(b) adds that the term “shall have the same meaning as in Part 390.5 of Title 49 Code of Federal Regulations and, to the extent there is a conflict between the two at any time, the definition in 49 CFR Part 390.5 shall control”.

Q: Do the federal trucking rules apply if the truck never left Massachusetts?

A: As a matter of Massachusetts regulation, yes for the rules the Commonwealth adopted. 540 CMR 14.03 incorporates Parts 382, 383, 387, 390, 391, 392, 393, 395, 396 and 397 of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations as Registry rules “in both intrastate and interstate commerce”, and 540 CMR 14.04(1) requires that “Every motor carrier operating in intrastate or interstate commerce, or both, upon the public ways of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts shall comply with” them. The Commonwealth carved out very little for purely intrastate operators. 540 CMR 14.05(1) exempts intrastate drivers from only three driver-qualification items: the age 21 requirement in 49 CFR 391.11(b)(1), the English language requirement in 49 CFR 391.11(b)(2) subject to its own exceptions, and the physical-defect waiver procedure in 49 CFR 391.49. Hours of service, inspection and maintenance, and driver qualification files are not on that exemption list.

Q: How much insurance does a truck have to carry compared to a Massachusetts car?

A: They are not close. A Massachusetts motor vehicle liability policy issued or renewed on or after July 1, 2025 must carry bodily injury limits of “not less than $25,000 on account of injury to or death of any one person” and “not less than $50,000 on account of any one accident resulting in injury to or death of more than one person” under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34A as amended by St. 2024, c. 275. By contrast, 49 C.F.R. 387.7(a) provides that “No motor carrier shall operate a motor vehicle until the motor carrier has obtained and has in effect the minimum levels of financial responsibility” set forth in section 387.9, and the schedule at 49 C.F.R. 387.9 sets $750,000 for a for-hire carrier in interstate or foreign commerce hauling nonhazardous property in a vehicle rated 10,001 pounds or more. Certain hazardous cargo carries a $5,000,000 or $1,000,000 minimum. For-hire passenger carriers in interstate commerce face $5,000,000 for vehicles seating 16 or more and $1,500,000 for 15 or fewer under 49 C.F.R. 387.33(a). These are minimum levels of financial responsibility a carrier must maintain. They are not a measure of what any particular claim is worth.

Q: What records is the trucking company already required to keep?

A: 540 CMR 14.04(3) states that “At a minimum, a motor carrier, whether engaging in intrastate or interstate operation, must maintain records in the regular course of business that comply with” a specific list. That list includes “49 CFR Part 387 relating to minimum levels of financial responsibility for a motor carrier engaged in interstate or foreign commerce or intrastate commerce”, Parts 383, 391 and 392 for driver qualification files, Part 382 for drug and alcohol testing records, “49 CFR Part 395 relating to hours of service”, Parts 393 and 396 for driver vehicle inspection reports and maintenance records, and “49 CFR Part 390.15 relating to accident registers and copies of all accident reports required by state or other governmental entities or insurers”. None of that has to be created for your claim. It is supposed to exist already.

Q: How long does a trucking company have to keep the driver’s hours records?

A: Six months. 49 C.F.R. 395.8(k)(1) provides that “A motor carrier shall retain records of duty status and supporting documents required under this part for each of its drivers for a period of not less than 6 months from the date of receipt”. The accident register is kept longer: 49 C.F.R. 390.15(b) provides that “Motor carriers must maintain an accident register for 3 years after the date of each accident”. Compare that with the filing deadline. M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2A provides that tort actions “shall be commenced only within three years next after the cause of action accrues”. A person who uses most of the legal deadline before asking for anything may be asking for hours records that the rules no longer required anyone to keep.

Q: What are the federal hours-of-service limits for a truck driver?

A: For a property-carrying commercial motor vehicle, 49 C.F.R. 395.3(a) sets out the core limits. A driver “may not drive without first taking 10 consecutive hours off duty”. A driver “may not drive after a period of 14 consecutive hours after coming on-duty following 10 consecutive hours off-duty”. Within that window, “A driver may drive a total of 11 hours”. And except for drivers who qualify for a short-haul exception, “driving is not permitted if more than 8 hours of driving time have passed without at least a consecutive 30-minute interruption in driving status”. On top of the daily limits, 49 C.F.R. 395.3(b) bars driving after “Having been on duty 60 hours in any period of 7 consecutive days” for a carrier that does not run every day, or “Having been on duty 70 hours in any period of 8 consecutive days” for one that does.

Q: If the truck driver broke a federal safety rule, does that mean the company is automatically liable?

A: No, and the distinction matters. Massachusetts does not treat a safety rule violation as automatic liability. In Perry v. Medeiros, 369 Mass. 836 (1976), the Supreme Judicial Court restated the rule this way: “The general rule in Massachusetts is that violation of the safety statute or ordinance does not in itself give rise to a cause of action but is evidence of negligence.” The same opinion adds that while such a violation is not conclusive on civil liability, it “is evidence of negligence on the part of a violator as to all consequences that the statute, ordinance or regulation was intended to prevent”. So an hours-of-service violation is evidence a jury may weigh on a fatigue-related crash. It is not a substitute for proving that the violation had something to do with what happened.

Q: Can I bring a claim against the trucking company and not just the driver?

A: Often more than one party is involved, and two federal rules pull in opposite directions on who. Under 49 C.F.R. 376.12(c)(1), a lease of equipment to an authorized carrier must provide that “the authorized carrier lessee shall have exclusive possession, control, and use of the equipment for the duration of the lease” and that it “shall assume complete responsibility for the operation of the equipment for the duration of the lease”. That language is frequently quoted as if it settles the independent-contractor question. It does not, and the regulation says so in the next breath: 49 C.F.R. 376.12(c)(4) provides that “Nothing in the provisions required by paragraph (c)(1) of this section is intended to affect whether the lessor or driver provided by the lessor is an independent contractor or an employee of the authorized carrier lessee”. Pulling the other way, the federal statute at 49 U.S.C. 30106, often called the Graves Amendment, provides that an owner who rents or leases a vehicle is not liable under state law “by reason of being the owner of the vehicle” where the owner is in the rental or leasing business and “there is no negligence or criminal wrongdoing on the part of the owner”. Whether any particular company can be held responsible is a fact question decided under Massachusetts law.

Q: Is Jimmy Knows AI giving me legal advice?

A: No. This is general information about Massachusetts law, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Statutes and regulations change, and the way a rule applies depends entirely on the facts of a specific situation. For advice about a specific matter, speak with a Massachusetts attorney. The Jim Glaser Law line is answered 24 hours a day at (617) JIM-WINS, and the first telephone consultation is free.

Talking to a Lawyer

A truck collision is the kind of Massachusetts claim where the difference between a good outcome and a poor one is often decided in the first weeks, by whoever asked for the right records while the rules still required them to exist. The law that governs your injury is ordinary Massachusetts law. The law that governs the company that hit you is not, and most of what it produces is written down somewhere before anyone gets a lawyer involved.

Jim Glaser Law answers its line 24 hours a day at (617) JIM-WINS, and the first telephone consultation is free. The firm’s truck accident practice page describes how these matters are handled, and fee terms for personal injury matters are set out in how much personal injury lawyers charge in Massachusetts. If the vehicle involved was an Uber or Lyft rather than a commercial truck, a different statutory scheme applies and is covered in rideshare accident claims.

This entry is general information about Massachusetts law and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.