A Massachusetts State Police trooper put his cruiser between an oncoming pickup truck and the rest of the traveling public on I-395 in Oxford early Sunday, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision before bringing the wrong-way driver to a stop. No one was hurt, but the close call capped a string of events that began in a fast-food parking lot and ended with an arrest on an OUI charge.
Troopers from the State Police Sturbridge Barracks responded around 12:45 a.m. on Nov. 1 to multiple 911 calls reporting a wrong-way driver on I-395 in Oxford, according to Massachusetts State Police. The pickup had already struck two vehicles in a fast-food restaurant parking lot before the driver sent it north into the southbound lanes of the highway at Exit 7, the department said.
A trooper heading south on I-395 radioed the duty office to report he had switched on his emergency lights and was slowing traffic behind him, creating a buffer as the wrong-way vehicle bore down. He narrowly avoided a head-on collision before bringing the pickup to a stop, with only minor damage to his cruiser. Neither the trooper nor the pickup's driver was hurt, per the same release.
Driver Identified, Facing OUI and Negligent Operation Charges
State police identified the operator as 30-year-old Daniel Macko of Worcester. He was arrested and charged with operating under the influence of liquor and negligent operation of a motor vehicle, the department said. The release describes charges filed against Macko, not a finding of guilt, and no plea or court outcome was included in the agency's account.
Massachusetts State Police Colonel Geoffrey Noble praised the trooper's response in a statement shared on the department's Facebook page. “I want to commend this brave Trooper's swift action to put himself in harm's way in order to protect the traveling public from an impaired wrong-way driver in the middle of the night,” Noble said.
Noble tied the incident to the broader dangers impaired driving poses to both motorists and the officers who respond to it. “It's situations like this that remind us all of the dangers of impaired driving and the potential consequences to our law enforcement professionals and the public. If it weren't for this Trooper's courage we may have had a tragic outcome,” he said.
Part of a Growing Problem on Massachusetts Highways
The Oxford incident lands amid a documented rise in wrong-way driving across the state. Massachusetts issued more than 500 wrong-way-driving citations in each of the past two years, according to a Boston Globe analysis. AAA data cited by the paper shows 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.
AAA Northeast separately told Boston 25 News that 51 people were killed in wrong-way crashes on the state's divided highways between 2018 and 2025. Per Boston 25 News, most wrong-way crashes happen at night, many involve confused older drivers, and the wrong-way driver is often impaired. The outlet also reported that 28-year-old Riley Sergi of Haverhill was killed in a separate I-93 wrong-way crash when a car driven by 81-year-old Antone Carvalho of Somerset struck his vehicle, a collision that also sent two other cars crashing while trying to avoid the wrong-way driver and hospitalized four people from one family.
Oxford has seen this kind of danger before. A wrong-way pickup entered I-395 North in the town around 8:30 a.m. on Nov. 17, 2022, and collided head-on with a tractor-trailer just before Exit 7A, according to Daily Voice. State officials are also trying to catch these incidents before they turn deadly: MassDOT's goal is to have 300 wrong-way-detection systems in place statewide by the end of 2027, and a pilot program already running at 16 locations has flagged roughly 300 wrong-way incidents since 2022, the Globe reported.
The problem isn't confined to Massachusetts. In Virginia, state police said a wrong-way-driving collision in the I-395 reversible express lanes involved three cars and injured a state trooper, according to WTOP. For now, state police in Massachusetts are crediting the Oxford trooper's quick thinking with preventing another entry on that list.
