Hit a Pothole and Crashed Your Bike in Cambridge, MA: The 30-Day Notice Law That Can Sink Your Claim

Most bike accident claims start with a driver: a car that turned across your path, a door that opened into traffic, a truck that passed too close. But some of the worst falls happen with no other vehicle involved at all. A wheel drops into a pothole, catches a sunken utility cut, or slides on a cracked seam of pavement, and the rider goes down hard, alone, on a public street the city was supposed to maintain. These crashes raise a different set of legal questions than a car-versus-bike collision, and they come with a deadline most injured cyclists never hear about until it has already passed.

Massachusetts Gives You Only 30 Days to Notify the City

Under Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 84, Section 18, a person injured by a defect in a public way must give written notice to the city within thirty days of the injury. The notice has to include the injured person’s name and address and the time, place, and cause of the injury. Section 19 spells out who has to receive it: for a city like Cambridge, that means the mayor, the city clerk, or the city treasurer, not a general customer service line. If the injured person dies before the deadline, an executor or administrator gets thirty days from their appointment to send it. If physical or mental incapacity makes it impossible to give notice in time, the clock restarts thirty days after that incapacity ends.

Thirty days is a fraction of the three-year window Massachusetts generally allows for a negligence lawsuit, and it runs whether or not you knew about it. Miss it, and the city can move to dismiss the claim before anyone ever argues about the pothole itself.

A 311 Report Is Not the Same as Legal Notice

Plenty of injured cyclists do exactly what Cambridge asks residents to do after any road hazard: they file a report through Commonwealth Connect or SeeClickFix so the Department of Public Works can send a crew out. That is worth doing, since it can create a timestamped record that the city knew about the hazard. But a maintenance ticket is not the notice the statute requires. Chapter 84 calls for a written, signed notice delivered specifically to the mayor, city clerk, or treasurer, stating that you were injured and describing when, where, and how. The safest approach is to do both: report the hazard for repair, and separately send the formal notice within the thirty-day window.

Hurt in a bike crash caused by a pothole or road defect in Cambridge? Get a free case review from a Cambridge injury attorney. Call 617-683-1983.

What the Road Defect Law Actually Covers

Section 15 of Chapter 84 allows recovery when an injury is caused by a defect or want of repair that the city could have fixed with reasonable care, and the city had, or should have had, reasonable notice of the problem before the crash. That last part matters: a pothole that opened up an hour before you rode over it is a harder case than one that had been reported or visibly deteriorating for weeks. The statute also caps what you can recover directly from the city at whichever is lower, one-fifth of one percent of the city’s most recent state valuation or five thousand dollars, a limit written into the law itself rather than something a court can adjust upward. It does not apply to a way that was under active construction and properly closed off or marked at the time.

What Counts as a Defect

Massachusetts practice reads want of repair broadly enough to cover the hazards that actually put cyclists on the ground: potholes, heaved or cracked pavement, sunken utility cuts, storm drain grates with slots that run parallel to a bike tire’s path, and broken or missing manhole covers. What all of them share is the notice requirement on the city’s side. A defect the city has reasonably been able to discover, whether through a prior complaint, a routine inspection, or simple visibility over time, supports a claim in a way that something that appeared without warning generally does not.

Cambridge Is Repaving, But Not Everywhere at Once

Cambridge has spent years extending its network of separated bike lanes under the Cycling Safety Ordinance, working toward roughly 25 miles of protected lanes citywide, with an estimated 17 miles complete or under construction ahead of an extended November 2026 deadline. New protected lanes get fresh pavement, but the ordinary streets that connect them do not all get repaved on the same schedule, and winter freeze-thaw cycles reliably open new cracks and potholes between paving cycles. The Department of Public Works works through requests submitted via Commonwealth Connect and SeeClickFix, but with a citywide street network to maintain, a reported defect does not always get fixed before someone rides over it.

What to Do After a Pothole or Road-Defect Bike Crash

A few steps protect both your health and your claim. Get medical attention first, since some injuries from a hard fall do not announce themselves right away. Photograph the defect itself, your bike’s damage, and the surrounding street, ideally with something for scale, before the city repairs or repaves it and the evidence disappears. Get the names and numbers of anyone who saw it happen. Report the hazard to the Department of Public Works so there is a repair record. And separately, send the written notice Chapter 84 requires to the mayor, city clerk, or treasurer within thirty days, since a maintenance ticket alone will not satisfy the statute.

It is also worth knowing what this kind of claim is not. Massachusetts personal injury protection coverage under Chapter 90, Section 34M applies when a registered motor vehicle is involved in the crash, and it does not extend to a solo fall with no vehicle in the picture. A pothole crash with no car involved runs through a negligence claim against the city under Chapter 84, not through an auto insurer, which is exactly why the short municipal notice deadline matters so much here.

If you were hurt in a fall caused by a pothole or another road defect while biking in Cambridge, the thirty-day clock starts running the day it happens, whether or not you know it exists. Melanson Law Group offers a free consultation to look at what happened and help make sure the required notice goes out on time. Call 617-683-1983 to speak with a Cambridge bicycle accident attorney.