Hit by a Truck or Bus While Biking in Cambridge, MA: Side Guards, Blind Spots and Massachusetts Law

A collision between a bicycle and a passenger car is usually survivable. A collision between a bicycle and a loaded box truck, a cement mixer or a city refuse truck often is not, and the reason has less to do with speed than with geometry. A large vehicle sits high off the pavement, and the open gap between its front and rear wheels is wide enough for a person to fall into. Federal researchers at the Volpe Center in Kendall Square put it bluntly: nearly half of the bicyclists killed by a large truck first strike the side of the truck, not the front.

That reframes the case. What matters is not only who had the green light, but what safety equipment the vehicle was required to carry, who owned it, and whether your deadline to bring a claim is three years or something considerably shorter.

Why a Large Vehicle Turning Across a Bike Lane Is a Different Crash

Large trucks are roughly four percent of registered vehicles nationally, yet they were involved in about eleven percent of bicyclist fatalities and eight percent of pedestrian fatalities in 2019 according to Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration figures. That overrepresentation concentrates in a narrow set of maneuvers, and the worst is the right turn.

A driver sitting high in a cab has a substantial blind zone along the right flank and in front of the hood. Long vehicles also swing left before turning right in order to clear the corner, which invites a rider to move up alongside the trailer just as the rear wheels begin tracking across the bike lane. The rider ends up in the least visible spot on the vehicle at the moment the vehicle takes that space, and the risk clusters at the same Cambridge intersections that are already hardest on cyclists. We have covered how fault gets sorted out in a Cambridge right hook or left cross, and the mechanics here are similar with far less margin for error.

What Massachusetts Law Requires of a Turning Driver

Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 90, Section 14 sets out several duties that bear directly on this crash. A driver turning right must do so in the lane nearest the right-hand side of the roadway and as close as practicable to the right-hand curb, which matters against a large vehicle because the wide left swing preceding so many truck right-turn crashes sits in tension with the rule itself.

The same section provides that no person operating a vehicle that overtakes and passes a bicyclist proceeding in the same direction shall make a right turn at an intersection or driveway unless the turn can be made at a safe distance from the bicyclist at a speed that is reasonable and proper. Nothing in that sentence turns on whether the driver could see the cyclist. The duty attaches to the driver who chose to pass and then turn. Section 14 separately requires a motor vehicle passing a vulnerable user to leave a safe distance of not less than four feet, and it forecloses the argument adjusters reach for first by stating that it shall not be a defense for a motorist causing an accident with a bicycle that the bicycle was to the right of vehicular traffic.

Hit by a truck or bus while biking in Cambridge? Get a free case review from a Cambridge injury attorney. Call 617-683-1983.

Side Guards Are Now Required on Many Massachusetts Trucks

A lateral protective device, usually called a side guard, is a rigid panel or rail covering the gap between a vehicle’s front and rear wheels so a person cannot be swept beneath the rear tires. It has been standard equipment in Japan since 1979 and across the European Union since the 1980s. After the United Kingdom required side guards nationally, cyclist deaths in the relevant category of truck collisions fell by sixty-one percent.

Massachusetts acted through the Act to Reduce Traffic Fatalities, Chapter 358 of the Acts of 2022, which amended Chapter 90, Section 7. A vehicle or trailer classified class 3 or above with a gross vehicle weight rating of 10,001 pounds or more must carry a lateral protective device, convex mirrors, crossover mirrors and a backup camera if the Commonwealth leased or purchased it on or after January 1, 2023, or if it operates under a contract executed with the Commonwealth on or after January 1, 2025. State snow, ice removal and towing contracts executed on or after July 1, 2025 are covered too, and owners certify compliance through an RMV portal, an obligation that began December 31, 2025.

Local government here was years ahead of the state. Boston enacted the country’s first side guard ordinance in 2014, Somerville adopted a comparable measure, and the Cambridge Truck Safety Ordinance was ordained on November 9, 2020, effective six months later. Cambridge reaches city vendors rather than the public at large: any contract of ten thousand dollars or more for goods, services, design or construction requires every large vehicle used under it to carry convex mirrors, crossover mirrors, decals and side under-ride guards. The protected class of vulnerable road users expressly includes anyone on a bicycle, and a violation is a breach of the vendor’s contract with the city.

For an injured rider, the significance is that a paper trail now exists. Whether a truck was required to carry a side guard, whether it did, and whether its owner certified compliance are all discoverable.

Who Pays, and Why the Owner’s Identity Changes Everything

The first layer works as in any Massachusetts bicycle crash. Personal injury protection under Chapter 90, Section 34M pays up to eight thousand dollars per person for medical expenses and seventy-five percent of lost wages regardless of fault, and it reaches a cyclist struck by a motor vehicle even though the cyclist was not in a car. That is a floor rather than a recovery, since PIP pays nothing for pain and suffering. Our guide to filing a Massachusetts bicycle accident insurance claim walks through how the layers stack.

Above that floor a commercial case often looks better than a car case, because commercial policies usually carry limits well above the Massachusetts minimums, which rose on July 1, 2025 to twenty-five thousand dollars per person and fifty thousand per accident for bodily injury. Several parties may share responsibility: the driver, the employer, the vehicle owner if different, and sometimes the general contractor on a job. A public vehicle shifts the calculus the other way. Claims against public employers run through the Massachusetts Tort Claims Act, Chapter 258, which caps damages at one hundred thousand dollars per claimant, and the Legislature brought the MBTA within that Act in 2009.

The Deadline May Be Much Shorter Than Three Years

This is the part that costs people their cases. The ordinary Massachusetts limitations period for personal injury is three years under Chapter 260, Section 2A. A claim against a public employer additionally requires presentment, meaning written notice to the executive officer of the responsible public entity within two years of the date the cause of action arose, under Chapter 258, Section 4. The employer then has six months to accept or deny before suit can be filed. Massachusetts courts enforce presentment strictly, and a claim that skips it or goes to the wrong official can be dismissed no matter how strong the facts are. A municipal truck, a private contractor’s truck and a transit bus are three legally different defendants, so identifying the owner early is not a formality. It sets the deadline.

What to Do in the First Days

Photograph the vehicle, not just the scene. The company name, the USDOT number on the door, the plate, the cab mirrors and the presence or absence of a side guard along the flank all get harder to document with time. Get the police report number and follow through with the treatment you are given, because gaps in treatment are the first thing an adjuster points to. Comparative fault under Chapter 231, Section 85 reduces your recovery by your share of the blame and bars it only if that share exceeds fifty percent, so a partial dispute does not end a claim. Commercial carriers also keep records ordinary drivers do not, including hours of service logs, maintenance files, telematics and camera footage, and those records are often overwritten on a schedule. A prompt letter asking that they be preserved is frequently the most useful thing done in the first month.

Talk to Someone Before the Trail Goes Cold

These cases involve equipment standards, contract terms, corporate defendants and sometimes a two-year notice requirement that has nothing to do with the ordinary three-year clock. If you were hurt while riding in Cambridge, Somerville, Boston or anywhere in Massachusetts, a Cambridge bicycle accident lawyer at Melanson Law Group offers a free consultation. Call 617-683-1983. There is no cost to find out where you stand and no obligation afterward.