A 32-year-old man from Westerly, Rhode Island suffered serious injuries Saturday afternoon after riding his motorcycle the wrong way across the Braga Bridge in Fall River, crashing into a Massachusetts State Police cruiser and another vehicle before fleeing on foot into highway traffic, where he was struck again. The chaotic sequence shut down the bridge's eastbound side for hours and left the crash under active investigation.
According to WPRI, the Bristol County District Attorney's Office said the man drove his motorcycle onto the bridge heading eastbound at 12:38 p.m. before turning the bike around and driving directly into oncoming traffic. The motorcycle then struck a Massachusetts State Police cruiser as well as a second vehicle in the eastbound lane, the DA's office said.
WCVB reported that the incident began around 12:30 p.m. when Massachusetts State Police troopers were assisting a motorist with a disabled vehicle in the breakdown lane near the crest of the bridge. The station, citing the Bristol County District Attorney's Office, reported that the man rode a Yamaha sportbike between lanes at high speed toward that area before turning around and heading the wrong way through traffic.
Rider Fled on Foot Into Highway Traffic
After the crashes, the man abandoned his motorcycle and attempted to run across traffic lanes on the westbound side of the bridge, according to the DA's office as reported by WCVB. He then fled the scene on foot and entered I-195 West, where he was struck by a car, the station's report and WPRI's account both note.
The man was taken to Rhode Island Hospital with what the DA's office described as significant injuries. Turn to 10 also covered the resulting delays on Route 195 in southeastern Massachusetts as crews worked the scene. The crash closed down the eastbound side of the Braga Bridge for several hours and caused significant backups, per the same account from WPRI. The investigation remains ongoing and is being handled by the Massachusetts State Police Detective Unit assigned to the Bristol County District Attorney's Office, led by District Attorney Thomas Quinn.
Part of a Statewide Surge in Wrong-Way Crashes
The Braga Bridge crash lands amid a broader Massachusetts reckoning with wrong-way driving. State officials are rolling out a $75 million prevention program featuring a network of cameras, warning signs and infrastructure upgrades, according to the Boston Globe. The newspaper reported that at least 135 people have died in 5,506 wrong-way crashes on Massachusetts roads since 2018, including 22 deaths in 2025 alone — the highest single-year total in that span. Other outlets have cited different cumulative figures: WCVB reported that AAA counted 143 deaths in 5,843 wrong-way crashes statewide since 2018, while WBUR put the AAA figure at 135 deaths in more than 5,700 crashes between 2018 and 2025.
Enforcement has ramped up alongside the engineering response. WBUR has reported that police cited more than 500 people for wrong-way driving in both 2024 and 2025, and WCVB found that state data showed 1,123 wrong-way citations issued between June 2024 and June 2026. As part of the technology push, Massachusetts plans to install wrong-way detection and warning systems at 430 locations by the end of 2027, WCVB reported, with thermal cameras designed to trigger flashing warning lights on signs and send real-time alerts to state police and transportation officials. Fall River itself was among the locations identified for that detection technology, with a planned installation at the I-195 eastbound exit near Reed Road, according to a separate WCVB report.
Other Recent Incidents Across the State
The Braga Bridge crash echoes other recent wrong-way incidents involving state troopers and fatal outcomes elsewhere in Massachusetts. A wrong-way driver struck a State Police cruiser on Route 1 in Peabody on May 31, injuring a trooper, according to the Boston Globe, which also reported that a Connecticut man allegedly fled a State Police traffic stop on the Massachusetts Turnpike before driving south in the northbound lanes of Route 146 in Millbury, where he died in a head-on crash. The Globe additionally noted that in November 2024, Endicott College Police Sergeant Jeremy Cole was killed when a wrong-way driver struck his vehicle on Interstate 95 in Newbury.
Rhode Island, where the injured motorcyclist is from, has its own history with the problem. WBUR reported that the state installed wrong-way sensors on high-risk highway ramps beginning in 2015 and went roughly a decade without a wrong-way fatal crash after recording eight such deaths in the five years prior. Whether similar detection equipment was active on the Braga Bridge at the time of Saturday's crash has not been confirmed, and the circumstances that led the motorcyclist to abandon his bike before the final collision on I-195 remain part of the ongoing investigation.
