Boston punishes drivers who expect a grid. The street pattern predates the automobile by two centuries, the merges are improvised, and the rotaries operate on a set of conventions that exist nowhere in the driver’s manual.
For anyone who enjoys driving, the city is an education. For anyone hurt in it, the recovery rules are unusual enough that assumptions carried in from other states are consistently wrong.
Severity in Boston follows geometry rather than raw traffic volume.
Storrow Drive and Soldiers Field Road combine narrow lanes, tight curves, no shoulder and notoriously low bridge clearances. Morrissey Boulevard and the Southeast Expressway approach carry high-speed volume into merges that were not designed for it.
The rotaries deserve separate mention. Kelley Square before its reconstruction became a national case study, and the region still contains many circles where entry priority is genuinely ambiguous to anyone unfamiliar with them.
Comm Ave through Allston and Brighton, with its curbside parking, streetcar tracks and constant cyclist volume, produces a distinctive pattern of dooring and turning collisions.
The tracks themselves are their own hazard for two-wheeled traffic, and the crossing angle at several intersections is almost designed to catch a narrow tire.
Add the student calendar. Early September concentrates tens of thousands of inexperienced drivers, overloaded rental trucks and unfamiliar pedestrians into the same few square miles, and the crash pattern reflects it every year.
Freeze and thaw cycles open potholes on exactly the corridors that carry the most speed, and a pothole that would be a nuisance at 30 mph becomes a loss of control at 55.
Snow narrows lanes without repainting them, pushes cyclists into traffic, and buries the sight lines at intersections behind plowed banks. A large share of the region’s worst months for serious crashes are explained by those three things rather than by driver behavior changing.
This is the part that surprises people, including people who have lived here for years.
Massachusetts requires Personal Injury Protection coverage, and it pays medical expenses and a portion of lost wages regardless of who caused the collision. It is the first payer, and it applies before any question of fault is resolved.
The compulsory coverage framework sits in Chapter 175, Section 113L, which sets out the motor vehicle liability policy requirements every registered vehicle must satisfy.
Because the state is a no-fault jurisdiction, a claim for pain and suffering against the at-fault driver is not automatically available. Massachusetts imposes a monetary threshold on medical expenses, with exceptions for certain categories of serious injury including fractures, and loss of a body member, sight or hearing.
That threshold is why documented, complete medical treatment matters more here than in a pure fault state. It is not only about proving the injury. It is about reaching the point where the claim exists at all.
Massachusetts contains two rules that meaningfully affect what a case is worth, and neither is widely known outside the practice.
Under Chapter 231, Section 6B, where a verdict or finding is rendered for pecuniary damages for personal injuries, the clerk of court adds interest to the damages at the rate of twelve percent per annum from the date the action commenced.
The section goes further and states this applies even where the interest brings the amount beyond the maximum liability otherwise imposed by law.
Twelve percent is far above current commercial rates. On a case that takes three years to reach judgment, the interest component is substantial, and it is a real factor in how defendants evaluate delay.
Ordinarily, proving that medical charges were fair and that treatment was necessary requires expert testimony, which is expensive.
Chapter 233, Section 79G allows itemized bills and reports, subscribed and sworn to under the penalties of perjury by the treating physician or other listed provider, to be admissible as evidence of the fair and reasonable charge, the necessity of the services, the diagnosis, the prognosis, the provider’s opinion as to proximate cause, and the opinion as to resulting disability.
The condition is procedural and strict. Written notice of the intention to offer the bill or report, together with a copy, must be given to the opposing party by certified mail, return receipt requested, not less than ten days before the material is introduced, with an affidavit of that notice filed with the clerk.
Miss the ten days and the shortcut disappears, and with it a meaningful part of the economics of a modest case.
Report the collision, use the PIP coverage promptly, and treat consistently rather than sporadically. Comparative fault applies in Massachusetts, so partial responsibility reduces rather than eliminates recovery, up to a point beyond which it bars the claim entirely.
Keep the itemized bills rather than only the insurer’s summaries, since the statutory shortcut depends on the form of the document as much as its content.
According to personal injury lawyer Nicholas R. Thompson, Principal and Managing Partner at RTRLAW, the threshold structure means Massachusetts cases turn on documentation earlier than cases in fault states do, because the paperwork determines whether a pain and suffering claim is available at all. Anyone weighing whether a case clears that line is usually better served speaking to a Boston personal injury lawyer while treatment is ongoing rather than after it concludes.
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