A 15-year-old died after being thrown from a car that struck a utility pole and left the roadway in Uxbridge over the weekend, according to police. Emergency crews responded to 685 Chocolog Rd. on Saturday night, where they found the teenager ejected from a Ford Focus involved in the crash.
The victim, a student at Uxbridge High School, was pronounced dead at Rhode Island Hospital, according to WCVB Boston. Two other occupants were in the car at the time of the crash, though police did not report injuries to either of them. The station reports that the Ford Focus struck a utility pole after leaving the roadway, though the cause of the crash has not been disclosed.
Uxbridge police closed the 680 block of Chocolog Road for several hours Saturday night as crews worked the scene, according to a social media post from the department cited in the same report. Investigators are asking anyone who witnessed the crash to call police at 508-278-7755.
A Rural Corridor Near Route 146
Blissful Meadows Golf Club is located at 801 Chocolog Road, according to Birdease. MassDOT has also carried out a 3.7-mile resurfacing project on nearby Route 146, stretching from the Rhode Island state line to just north of the Chocolog Road interchange, per the agency's project records.
The crash adds to a string of serious roadway incidents in the Uxbridge area in recent months. In January, Uxbridge Police Officer Stephen LaPorta was struck and killed while helping a motorist on Route 146, according to the Worcester County District Attorney's Office, a loss that drew significant community mourning. Separately, Hoodline reported on a crash in West Warren in August, when a fleeing motorcyclist slammed into a second rider in a case also investigated by state police and the district attorney's office.
Open Questions About the Driver and Restraints
It remains unclear who was driving the Ford Focus, whether that driver held a Junior Operator License, or whether seat belts were in use at the time of the crash. Under the state's Junior Operator Law, drivers under 18 are barred from carrying passengers under 18 who are not immediate family during their first six months of licensure, and face a curfew between 12:30 a.m. and 5 a.m., according to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Whether any of those restrictions applied in this case has not been addressed by police.
Seat belt use remains a central factor in survival outcomes during high-speed crashes. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data from 2023 shows that wearing a seat belt reduces the chance of total occupant ejection to about 1 percent in fatal crashes, compared with 25 percent among unrestrained occupants. Separate 2024 NHTSA data found that 58 percent of back-seat passengers and 47 percent of front-seat occupants killed in passenger vehicle crashes nationwide were unrestrained.
Massachusetts recorded a record-high seat belt usage rate of 85.53 percent in a 2025 observational study by UMassSafe.
Crash Reporting and Investigation
The Massachusetts State Police Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Section participated in the investigation into Officer LaPorta's crash, according to the Worcester County District Attorney's Office. Under state law, local departments must submit an official crash report to the Registry of Motor Vehicles within 15 days of any collision resulting in injury, fatality, or significant property damage, per the Worcester Police Department. Full findings from a state reconstruction team can take considerably longer to complete, and no determination on speed, mechanical failure, or road conditions in the Chocolog Road crash has yet been released.
