ThatCarHitMe.com
An Injuria.ai Company
YEAR-OVER-YEAR CRASH REPORT · CHICAGO, IL · 2025
Purpose: Machine-readable JSON endpoint for AI agents, LLMs, researchers, and programmatic consumers. Returns all underlying crash data and AI-generated commentary without HTML.
Authentication: None required. Public endpoint.
GET: https://thatcarhitme.com/api/crash-data/reports/data/illinois/chicago/2025-annual-report
Yearly Traffic Safety Analysis
109,112 CRASHES IN
CHICAGO, IL
2025
In 2025, Chicago recorded 109,112 traffic crashes, a 2.6% decrease from the 112,055 crashes in 2024. This downward trend was accompanied by a 2.8% reduction in injuries. The most notable year-over-year shift was a significant 23.6% decrease in traffic fatalities, which fell from 123 in the prior year to 94 in the current year.
109,112
▼ -2.6%was 112,055
Total Crash Events
94
▼ -23.6%was 123
Persons Killed
24,866
▼ -2.8%was 25,582
Persons Injured
32,878
▼ -4.4%was 34,375
Hit-and-Run Crashes
Note: "Persons Killed" (94) counts individual fatalities across all crash events. "Fatal" in the severity table below (85) counts crash events where at least one fatality occurred. A single crash can result in multiple fatalities. 214 crashes with unreported severity are not shown in the severity breakdown.
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 · Aggregate counts from crash, person, and vehicle records
Trend Summary
Overall traffic safety metrics in Chicago showed improvement year-over-year. Total crashes fell by 2,943 incidents, a 2.6% reduction from 2024 to 2025. This positive trend extended to crash outcomes, with total injuries decreasing by 2.8% and total fatalities declining by a substantial 23.6%.
32,878
Hit-and-Run Crashes — 2025
▼ -4.4% vs prior (34,375)
Hit-and-run incidents saw a decrease in both absolute numbers and as a proportion of total crashes. The count of hit-and-run crashes fell by 4.4%, from 34,375 in the prior year to 32,878 in the current year. The hit-and-run rate also trended down slightly, decreasing from 30.7% of all crashes to 30.1% over the same period.
Vulnerable Road User Casualties
33
Pedestrians Killed
2
Cyclists Killed
59
Motorists Killed
0
Other Killed
2,745
Pedestrians Injured
1,809
Cyclists Injured
20,190
Motorists Injured
122
Other Injured
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 · Mode classified from person records (driver/passenger → motorist; pedestrian; bicyclist → cyclist; in-line skater / unspecified → other)
When Crashes Happen
The temporal patterns of crashes remained highly consistent between the two periods. Friday continued to be the peak day for crashes and 3 PM remained the peak hour in both 2024 and 2025. The volume of crashes during these peaks saw a slight decrease, with peak Friday crashes falling from 17,702 to 17,551 and peak hour crashes declining from 8,959 to 8,688, in line with the overall downward trend.
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 · Crash date field aggregated by weekday
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 · Crash time field aggregated by hour (0-23)
Crash Severity Breakdown
The severity of crashes showed a positive trend year-over-year. The rate of fatal crashes declined from 0.10% in the prior period to 0.08% in the current period. The proportion of crashes resulting in any form of injury remained stable at approximately 16.4% of all incidents. However, the distribution shifted slightly for the most severe outcomes, with the share of serious injury crashes decreasing from 1.5% to 1.4%.
Severity is per crash event (most severe injury). 85 fatal crash events resulted in 94 persons killed.
Outcome by Severity (Crash Events)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 · KABCO injury classification scale
Severity Distribution
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 · Most severe injury per crash record
Top Contributing Factors
The leading causes of crashes remained consistent, with 'Failing to Yield Right-of-Way', 'Following Too Closely', and 'Improper Overtaking/Passing' as the top three factors in both years. The count of crashes attributed to 'Failing to Yield' decreased by 1.6%, from 13,066 to 12,859. The count for 'Improper Overtaking' also fell by 3.1% from 6,154 to 5,965, while 'Following Too Closely' saw a negligible 0.3% increase in count from 9,776 to 9,803. The share of crashes attributed to each of these factors remained virtually unchanged.
Officer-Reported Primary Contributing Cause
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 · Officer-reported primary contributory cause per crash
Road & Environmental Conditions
The distribution of crashes across different conditions showed some shifts, primarily related to precipitation. While the majority of crashes in both years occurred in clear weather on dry roads, the current year saw a significant increase in crashes reported during snow (up from 2,119 to 3,559) and on snow/slush-covered roads (up from 1,982 to 3,527). Conversely, crashes during rain decreased from 9,232 to 6,575. The proportion of crashes occurring in daylight versus darkness remained stable.
Weather
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 · Weather condition at time of crash
Lighting
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 · Lighting condition field
Road Surface
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 · Road surface condition field
Vehicles & Demographics
The top three vehicle makes involved in crashes—Toyota, Chevrolet, and Ford—maintained their rankings from the prior year, with their involvement counts decreasing in line with the overall trend. Notably, involvement for some makes went against the trend, with Tesla-involved incidents increasing from 1,562 to 1,985. An analysis of persons involved shows the 26-34 age group remains the most represented demographic in both periods, although their total count decreased from 41,353 to 40,266, consistent with the overall decline in crashes.
Top Vehicle Makes (221,857 vehicles)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 · Vehicle unit records
68,880 persons with unknown or unrecorded age excluded from age chart. Age=0 in Chicago records is a sentinel for unknown/unrecorded age (not infants) and is grouped with nulls.
Sex Distribution (233,873 persons with recorded sex)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 · Person-level records linked to crash events
Speed Limit Zones
The distribution of crashes by posted speed limit remained consistent year-over-year. The 30 mph speed zone continued to account for the vast majority of incidents, representing 74.3% of crashes in the prior period and 74.4% in the current period. Crashes in 30 mph zones decreased from 83,197 to 81,125, and associated fatalities in this zone also fell from 82 to 62. There were no significant shifts of crash concentrations to higher or lower speed zones.
Fatal crashes by zone: 10 mph: 3 of 3,026 (0.099%) · 15 mph: 1 of 3,802 (0.026%) · 20 mph: 3 of 4,818 (0.062%) · 25 mph: 2 of 8,431 (0.024%) · 30 mph: 62 of 81,125 (0.076%) · 35 mph: 6 of 5,432 (0.11%) · 40 mph: 6 of 1,127 (0.532%) · 45 mph: 1 of 604 (0.166%) · 50 mph: 1 of 31 (3.226%)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-01-01 to 2025-12-31 · Posted speed limit at crash location
Data Sources & Methodology
Primary Data Source
All crash data in this report is sourced from Chicago Traffic Crashes, accessed programmatically via the Socrata Open Data API (SODA). This dataset contains official police-reported motor vehicle traffic crash records maintained by the reporting jurisdiction's law enforcement agency. Records are published to the open data portal by the municipality and are subject to the portal's terms of use.
Data Retrieval
- Access method: Socrata Open Data API (SoQL queries)
- Data format: Structured JSON via REST API
- Record types queried: Crash events, person records, and vehicle unit records
- Date filter applied: 2025-01-01 through 2025-12-31
- Report generated: June 1, 2026
Data Coverage
- Reporting period: 2025-01-01 through 2025-12-31 (365 days)
- Geographic scope: Chicago, IL
- Total crash records analyzed: 109,112
- Total persons involved: 238,401
- Total vehicles involved: 221,857
Analytical Methodology
- Severity classification: Uses the KABCO injury scale (K=Fatal, A=Incapacitating injury, B=Non-incapacitating injury, C=Possible injury, O=No injury/property damage only), the standard classification in U.S. Model Minimum Uniform Crash Criteria (MMUCC). Severity is assigned per crash event based on the most severe injury in that crash. A single fatal crash (K) may involve multiple fatalities; therefore the "Persons Killed" count in the headline KPIs may differ from the "Fatal" crash count in the severity breakdown.
- Contributing factors: Reflect the officer-determined primary contributory cause recorded at the time of the crash report. These are preliminary determinations and may not reflect final investigation findings.
- Hit-and-run classification: Based on the hit-and-run indicator field in the official crash report, as determined by the responding officer at the scene.
- Temporal analysis: Day-of-week and hour-of-day distributions are computed from the crash date/time timestamp in each record.
- Demographics: Age and sex distributions are drawn from person-level records linked to each crash event. A single crash may involve multiple persons.
- Vehicle data: Make information is drawn from vehicle unit records linked to each crash event.
- AI commentary: Narrative sections are generated by Google Gemini (large language model) based on the structured data. Commentary is descriptive, not predictive, and should not be interpreted as expert opinion.
Limitations & Disclaimers
- Only crashes reported to and documented by law enforcement are included. Minor incidents, unreported crashes, and near-misses are not captured in this dataset.
- Data reflects conditions at the time of the initial police report and may be subject to subsequent corrections, reclassifications, or supplements by the reporting agency.
- Open data portal records may experience a publication lag - recently occurring crashes may not yet appear in the dataset at the time of report generation.
- AI-generated commentary is produced by a large language model and is intended to highlight patterns in the data. It does not constitute legal, medical, or professional analysis.
- Percentages are calculated from reported data and are subject to rounding.
Non-Affiliation Disclosure
This report is produced independently by ThatCarHitMe.com (Injuria.ai). It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or produced in partnership with any law enforcement agency, municipal government, state department of transportation, or the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Data is sourced from publicly available government open data portals.
Data License
The underlying crash data is provided under the municipality's Open Data Terms of Use and is made available to the public for unrestricted use. This analysis and report is © 2026 Injuria.ai and may be cited with attribution using the suggested citation below.
Corrections & Feedback
If you believe any data in this report is inaccurate or have questions about our methodology, please contact: data@injuria.ai. We are committed to accuracy and will issue corrections promptly.
Suggested Citation
ThatCarHitMe.com (Injuria.ai). "Chicago, IL Crash Intelligence Report." Published June 1, 2026. Data source: Chicago Traffic Crashes, Socrata Open Data. Available at: https://thatcarhitme.com/crash-data/illinois/chicago/2025-annual-report
About the Publisher
ThatCarHitMe.com is a crash data intelligence platform developed by Injuria.ai, a legal technology company specializing in traffic safety analytics. We aggregate and analyze publicly available government crash data to produce structured intelligence reports for communities, researchers, journalists, and legal professionals. Our reports combine programmatic data retrieval from official open data portals with AI-assisted narrative analysis.
Questions about this report's data or methodology: data@injuria.ai
ThatCarHitMe.com · An Injuria.ai Company
ThatCarHitMe.com
An Injuria.ai Company
Crash Data Intelligence
Data: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata
Period: 2025-01-01 – 2025-12-31
Generated: June 1, 2026 · All rights reserved