ThatCarHitMe.com
An Injuria.ai Company
YEAR-OVER-YEAR CRASH REPORT · CHICAGO, IL · APRIL 2024
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/april-2024-report
Monthly Traffic Safety Analysis
9,254 CRASHES IN
CHICAGO, IL
APRIL 2024
Total crashes in April 2024 were 9,254, an increase of 2.68% from the 9,012 crashes recorded in April 2023. The most notable year-over-year shift was a 37.5% decrease in total fatalities, from 8 in April 2023 to 5 in April 2024. Despite the increase in total crashes, the number of fatal crashes also decreased by 37.5% over the year.
9,254
▲ 2.7%was 9,012
Total Crash Events
5
▼ -37.5%was 8
Persons Killed
2,020
▲ 8.8%was 1,856
Persons Injured
2,807
▼ -3.8%was 2,919
Hit-and-Run Crashes
Note: "Persons Killed" (5) counts individual fatalities across all crash events. "Fatal" in the severity table below (5) counts crash events where at least one fatality occurred. A single crash can result in multiple fatalities. 25 crashes with unreported severity are not shown in the severity breakdown.
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2024-04-01 to 2024-04-30 · Aggregate counts from crash, person, and vehicle records
Trend Summary
Overall, total crashes in Chicago saw a slight increase year-over-year, rising by 2.68% from 9,012 crashes in April 2023 to 9,254 crashes in April 2024. However, this increase in total incidents was accompanied by a positive trend in safety outcomes, as total fatalities decreased by 37.5% during the same period.
2,807
Hit-and-Run Crashes — April 2024
▼ -3.8% vs prior (2,919)
The number of hit-and-run crashes decreased year-over-year, falling by 112 incidents from 2,919 in April 2023 to 2,807 in April 2024. This change resulted in a decrease in the hit-and-run rate by 2.1 percentage points, from 32.4% to 30.3%. The trend for hit-and-run incidents is downward in both count and rate.
Vulnerable Road User Casualties
0
Pedestrians Killed
0
Cyclists Killed
5
Motorists Killed
0
Other Killed
221
Pedestrians Injured
94
Cyclists Injured
1,698
Motorists Injured
7
Other Injured
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2024-04-01 to 2024-04-30 · Mode classified from person records (driver/passenger → motorist; pedestrian; bicyclist → cyclist; in-line skater / unspecified → other)
When Crashes Happen
The temporal patterns of crashes showed some shifts between the two periods. The peak day for crashes changed from Saturday in April 2023 (1,467 crashes) to Monday in April 2024 (1,556 crashes). The peak hour for crashes remained consistent at 3 PM, with 751 crashes in April 2023 and 798 crashes in April 2024.
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2024-04-01 to 2024-04-30 · Crash date field aggregated by weekday
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2024-04-01 to 2024-04-30 · Crash time field aggregated by hour (0-23)
Crash Severity Breakdown
The distribution of crash severity showed a decrease in the most severe outcomes year-over-year. Fatal crashes decreased from 8 in April 2023 to 5 in April 2024, maintaining a 0.1% fatal crash rate. Serious injury crashes (severity 'A') also decreased by 50, from 166 to 116, while minor injury crashes (severity 'B') increased by 36, and possible injury crashes (severity 'C') increased by 147.
Outcome by Severity (Crash Events)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2024-04-01 to 2024-04-30 · KABCO injury classification scale
Severity Distribution
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2024-04-01 to 2024-04-30 · Most severe injury per crash record
Top Contributing Factors
The top contributing factors remained consistent in their rankings, but their counts changed. 'Failing to Yield Right-of-Way' increased by 68 crashes, from 1,032 to 1,100, maintaining its position as the top factor. 'Following Too Closely' saw a 14.55% increase in count, rising by 110 crashes from 756 to 866. Notably, crashes attributed to 'Weather' increased significantly by 115.38%, from 39 in April 2023 to 84 in April 2024.
Officer-Reported Primary Contributing Cause
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2024-04-01 to 2024-04-30 · Officer-reported primary contributory cause per crash
Road & Environmental Conditions
Adverse weather conditions played a larger role in crashes in April 2024 compared to the prior year. Crashes during 'RAIN' conditions more than doubled, increasing by 696 crashes from 667 to 1,363, a 104.35% rise. Correspondingly, crashes on 'WET' road surfaces increased by 75.05%, from 966 to 1,691, while crashes on 'DRY' surfaces decreased by 533. Despite these shifts, 'CLEAR' weather and 'DAYLIGHT' remained the dominant conditions for crashes.
Weather
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2024-04-01 to 2024-04-30 · Weather condition at time of crash
Lighting
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2024-04-01 to 2024-04-30 · Lighting condition field
Road Surface
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2024-04-01 to 2024-04-30 · Road surface condition field
Vehicles & Demographics
The total number of vehicles involved in crashes increased by 2.39%, from 18,443 in April 2023 to 18,883 in April 2024. Among vehicle types, 'DRIVER' involvement increased by 546, while 'PARKED' vehicle involvement decreased by 99. Toyota remained the top vehicle make involved in crashes, with its count increasing by 202 from 2,055 to 2,257, while Chevrolet's count decreased by 81.
Top Vehicle Makes (18,883 vehicles)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2024-04-01 to 2024-04-30 · Vehicle unit records
6,097 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 (20,161 persons with recorded sex)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2024-04-01 to 2024-04-30 · Person-level records linked to crash events
Speed Limit Zones
Crashes in 30 mph zones increased by 229, from 6,693 to 6,922, with the number of fatalities in these zones remaining at 4. Fatalities in 20 mph, 25 mph, and 40 mph zones all decreased from the prior year to zero. Conversely, 35 mph zones saw an increase from zero fatalities in April 2023 to one fatality in April 2024, with crashes in this zone increasing by 25.
Fatal crashes by zone: 30 mph: 4 of 6,922 (0.058%) · 35 mph: 1 of 526 (0.19%)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2024-04-01 to 2024-04-30 · 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: 2024-04-01 through 2024-04-30
- Report generated: June 1, 2026
Data Coverage
- Reporting period: 2024-04-01 through 2024-04-30 (30 days)
- Geographic scope: Chicago, IL
- Total crash records analyzed: 9,254
- Total persons involved: 20,565
- Total vehicles involved: 18,883
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/april-2024-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: 2024-04-01 – 2024-04-30
Generated: June 1, 2026 · All rights reserved