And yet, year after year, that contract is broken, sometimes with catastrophic consequences.

As a personal injury law firm that has represented pedestrians, cyclists, and e-bike riders across the Commonwealth, we’ve come to see the crosswalk not as a symbol of safety, but as one of the most contested and dangerous few square feet of pavement in modern life. This isn’t hyperbole. It’s what the data and our caseload tells us.

A Deadly Year on Massachusetts Streets

In 2025, Massachusetts recorded 354 traffic fatalities statewide. Of those, at least 76 were pedestrians — meaning roughly one in every five traffic deaths in the state involved someone simply trying to cross the street or walk along a road. That figure comes from WalkMassachusetts’ fifth annual report on fatal pedestrian crashes, which draws directly from MassDOT crash data.

To put that in perspective: this isn’t a rare, freak occurrence. It’s a pattern so consistent that advocacy groups have tracked it annually for half a decade.

The 76 pedestrian deaths in 2025 were roughly in line with the 78 recorded in 2024, and while that’s down from the grim high of 101 deaths in 2022, it’s nowhere close to “safe.”

A few details from the most recent data stand out as especially important for anyone who walks, drives, or bikes in Massachusetts:

• Speed is the common thread. Traffic safety advocates point to one factor that shows up again and again in fatal crashes: excessive vehicle speed. Roughly 70% of pedestrian fatalities occur on roads with posted speed limits between 25 and 35 mph, the ordinary streets we cross every day.
• Darkness is deadly. Close to 69% of fatal pedestrian crashes happen after dark, when visibility is reduced.
• Older adults are disproportionately at risk. Adults 65 and older made up roughly 43% of pedestrian fatalities in 2025, despite representing under 20% of the state’s population, a disparity that has held for five consecutive years of reporting.
• Boston’s injury numbers are climbing. Pedestrian injuries in Boston alone rose from 465 in 2024 to 571 in 2025, even as the city continues to invest in safety redesigns.

These aren’t just statistics on a spreadsheet. Each number represents a person who left their house expecting to come home, but instead became part of a preventable tragedy.

It’s Not Just Cars: The Rise of E-Bike and Scooter Crashes

For decades, the pedestrian safety conversation focused almost entirely on cars. That’s no longer the whole picture. Micromobility (e-bikes, e-scooters) has exploded in popularity across Massachusetts, and crosswalks have become a flashpoint for a new category of collision.

MassDOT’s IMPACT crash data shows nearly 900 crashes involving e-bikes and e-scooters between 2023 and 2025 alone. Nationally, the trend is even starker: emergency department visits tied to micromobility crashes climbed from roughly 37,300 in 2017 to more than 149,000 in 2024 (a jump of about 300%), with related fatalities rising from just five in 2017 to 135 in 2024, according to Consumer Product Safety Commission data.

Massachusetts has seen this play out in tragic, specific incidents. In 2025, a pedestrian struck by an e-bike near Copley Square in Boston later died from his injuries, a case that has since become a flashpoint in local debates over micromobility regulation. In the first half of 2026 alone, multiple serious e-bike and e-scooter crashes involving teenage riders required medical helicopter transport to regional trauma centers.

Part of the danger lies in ambiguity. Under Massachusetts law, e-bikes and e-scooters are legally vehicles, subject to registration and inspection requirements, and their operators must yield to pedestrians in crosswalks. However, enforcement and public understanding of these rules lag behind the devices’ surge in popularity. Riders often reach speeds that outpace what pedestrians or drivers expect from something that looks like a bicycle, and many riders (especially younger ones) lack the experience to handle that speed safely. The result is a growing category of crosswalk collisions that doesn’t fit neatly into the “driver vs. pedestrian” framework our laws were originally built around.

Why the Crosswalk Itself Can Be the Problem

It’s tempting to think of crosswalk collisions purely as a matter of individual negligence caused by a distracted driver, a jaywalking pedestrian, or a reckless scooter rider. But a closer look at Massachusetts crash data suggests something more structural is often at play: street design itself.

Massachusetts stands out nationally in an important way as it has one of the highest proportions of urban fatal crashes of any state, largely because so much of the Commonwealth’s population and street grid is concentrated in dense, older cities never designed for modern traffic volumes or speeds. Many crosswalks sit on roads with wide lanes, minimal lighting, and long, unprotected crossing distances — all factors that research consistently links to more severe outcomes when a crash does occur.

This is precisely why the state’s most effective safety interventions haven’t focused on driver education alone. They’ve focused on physically redesigning the street.

What Massachusetts Is Doing About It

To its credit, the Commonwealth isn’t ignoring this problem. Several coordinated efforts are underway at the state and municipal level:

MassDOT’s Complete Streets Funding Program continues to award grants — often $500,000 or more per project — to cities and towns for infrastructure like new crosswalks, curb extensions, ADA-compliant ramps, flashing pedestrian beacons, and improved street lighting. Recent recipients have used this funding to shrink dangerous intersections, add raised and high-visibility crosswalks, and shorten the distance pedestrians must travel to cross safely.

The Boston Region Vision Zero Action Plan, endorsed by the Boston Region Metropolitan Planning Organization in March 2026, commits 97 municipalities in the greater Boston area to a shared goal: eliminating fatal and serious-injury crashes entirely by 2050. The plan is built around a public data dashboard that lets individual communities identify their own high-risk corridors and target interventions accordingly, rather than applying one-size-fits-all fixes.

Somerville has become something of a proof of concept. After adopting Vision Zero principles in 2017, the city reported zero traffic fatalities for three consecutive years and a 50% decline in serious-injury crashes. Its approach hasn’t relied on a single dramatic fix rather, proven tools such as raised crosswalks that physically force drivers to slow down, curb bump-outs that shorten crossing distances, and redesigned intersections along historically dangerous corridors like Mystic Avenue and McGrath Highway.

MassDOT’s public education materials now specifically address crosswalk design for drivers, explaining features like curb bump-outs and “shark’s teeth” markings that indicate where vehicles must stop, an acknowledgment that many crashes stem not from malice, but from drivers simply not recognizing or understanding crosswalk infrastructure.

These efforts represent real progress. But progress is not the same as safety, and the pace of infrastructure change is, by design, slow. A single intersection redesign can take years to fund, approve, and construct. In the meantime, people are still crossing dangerous streets every single day.

What This Means If You’ve Been Hurt in a Crosswalk

If you or someone you love has been struck by a vehicle, e-bike, or scooter while using a crosswalk, it’s natural to assume the law was clearly on your side and that fault will be simple to establish. In practice, these cases are often more complicated than they appear.

Insurance companies frequently attempt to shift blame onto the injured pedestrian, arguing about walk signal timing, visibility, or whether the pedestrian was fully within the marked lines. E-bike and scooter cases raise additional questions about liability — was the device owned by the rider, a rental company, or a delivery platform? Was the rider operating within the legal speed and class restrictions for their vehicle? These are exactly the kinds of factual disputes that determine whether an injured person receives fair compensation for medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering — or walks away with nothing.

Understanding your rights starts with understanding how these crashes actually happen — and, as the data shows, they happen more often, and in more varied ways, than most people realize. If you’ve been injured in a crosswalk or know someone who has, consult with the legal experts at Marcotte Law Firm, Merrimack Valley’s leading personal injury law firm.

This article is intended for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.

According to the report, Boston drivers average just 3.76 years between collisions, giving them a relative crash likelihood roughly 189% higher than the national average. For context, the average U.S. driver goes nearly 11 years between collisions.

The city of Boston wasn’t alone, either, as Worcester and Springfield also landed in the ‘top 5 worst’ cities ranked (out of 200), with Providence, Rhode Island earning a spot in the top ten riskiest metros to drive in. The report further found that the Northeast is home to seven of the ten riskiest cities in the nation to drive in; a list which also includes Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Philadelphia alongside the named Massachusetts cities.

The newly released report is based on property damage claims filed between January 2023 and December 2024. Allstate also pointed to behavioral data from its Drivewise telematics program, noting that Boston stands out for elevated rates of phone use when driving, a habit that becomes especially dangerous when combined with the region’s dense traffic, narrow streets, and famously confusing intersections.

A Regional Response: The “New England Drive to Save Lives” Campaign

With population increases post-COVID, as well as hundreds of thousands of seasonal tourists visiting New England each year (Summer on the Cape and Islands, Autumn leaf peepers, and White Mountain skiers), the problem has raised enough alarms. 

Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Maine, Vermont, and Connecticut have joined forces this summer in support of the New England Drive to Save Lives campaign, a coordinated regional effort involving state and local police, highway safety offices, and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The campaign includes increased highway patrols, community outreach events, and public safety messaging aimed at shifting driver mindsets before small bad habits turn into serious crashes. 

Law enforcement agencies along the I-95 and I-91 corridors are stepping up enforcement of speeding, distracted driving, and seatbelt laws through the busy summer travel season, with additional waves of enforcement planned as the calendar moves into Fall, just in time for leaf-peeping tourists, shortened daylight hours, and back-to-school traffic.

Tips for Driving Safely in Massachusetts and Southern New Hampshire 

Whether you’re a lifelong local or just passing through, a few precautions can go a long way toward keeping you and your family safe:

1. Put the phone away. Distracted driving is a major factor behind Boston’s ranking. Use hands-free settings, or better yet, silence notifications entirely while driving.
2. Build in extra time. Summer road work and detours are common throughout Massachusetts and New Hampshire (hello, Cape Cod bridges!). Stay patient and expect sudden slowdowns
3. Watch for pedestrians and cyclists. Warmer weather brings more foot and bike traffic, particularly in dense areas like Boston, Cambridge, and Worcester. Slow down near crosswalks and give cyclists a wide berth.
4. Keep a cool head. New England drivers have a reputation for aggressive driving. It’s a good idea to signal early, commit to merges, and, for goodness sake, don’t hesitate in a rotary, since hesitation is often what leads to accidents. 
5. Anticipate heavier weekend and holiday traffic. Leaf-peeping season and fall weekend getaways bring a surge of unfamiliar drivers. Locals know what’s coming, so give yourself extra time to navigate the increased volume. 

Even the most careful drivers can’t control what other people do on the road. If you or a loved one has been injured in a collision anywhere in Massachusetts or southern New Hampshire, Marcotte Law Firm is available to help. Contact us today for a free consultation.

July 16, 2026

This post is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.

Due to the increased amount of bicycle traffic, vehicles and bicycles are often vying for the same road space. Drivers often believe that they always have the right-of-way and that cyclists are the ones who need to move to the side. However, the fact is that drivers share the road with all vehicles, including cyclists. A cyclist is entitled to use an entire travel lane, even if there are other vehicles sharing the road. Due to differences in traveling speed, drivers often perform unsafe maneuvers in an effort to pass the slower-moving cyclist. It is not uncommon for a driver to “clip” a cyclist when attempting to pass. Similar to pedestrian accidents, bicycle accident injuries can be very serious due to the size and weight difference between bicycles and vehicles. Further, like pedestrians, bicycles offer no protection from vehicles.

Another common example of bicycle-vehicle accidents are known as “dooring accidents.” Dooring refers to when the driver of a parked vehicle opens a car door as a cyclist approaches. Due to travel speed and limited reaction time, cyclists often strike an opened vehicle door with tremendous force. Massachusetts law requires vehicle drivers and passengers to check for cyclists before opening their doors.

There are a number of Massachusetts laws aimed at ensuring safe conditions for cyclists, including, but not limited to:

• Unlike vehicles, cyclists may pass vehicles on the right. This fact cannot be used as a legal defense for a motorist involved in an accident with a cyclist;
• Cyclists must obey all traffic laws, including the use of headlights and tail lights for night riding;
• After passing a cyclist, a driver may not make abrupt right turns at intersections and driveways, i.e., they must let the cyclist pass first;
• Drivers may not pass cyclists until there is a safe distance to do so. If there is not a safe distance, then the driver must wait;
• No more than two (2) cyclists may ride together, except on multi-lane roads where there is more than one (1) lane traveling in the same direction. In these instances, the group of cyclists must ride in a single lane; and
• When preparing to make a left turn, drivers must yield to oncoming cyclists.

Now that you know the law, and have followed it perfectly as a cyclist, what happens if I am still involved in an accident? If this happens to you, there are a couple things you should do.

1. Check yourself for injuries. If you are able to do so, move yourself and bicycle out of harms way;
2. Similar to a car accident, collect as much information as you can from or about the other involved parties;
3. File accident reports; and
4. Hire an attorney to help you navigate the insurance and possible litigation process

A quick word about accident reports. Massachusetts law requires an accident report for any motor vehicle accident that results in injury to any involved party, or property damage in excess of $1,000. Also, the report must be filed within five (5) days of the accident. The Massachusetts RMV’s website has downloaded accident report forms and you can also pick one up at any police station. It is also best practice to make at least four (4) copies of the report; 1) mail the original to the RMV; 2) submit one to the police department in the place where the accident occurred; 3) keep one to submit to the other party’s insurance company; and 4) keep one for your own records.

Given the likely severity of injuries, the presence of insurance companies, and the timelines required for a necessary accident report, it is in your interest to hire a personal injury lawyer who can help represent your best interests.