ThatCarHitMe.com
An Injuria.ai Company
YEAR-OVER-YEAR CRASH REPORT · CHICAGO, IL · JANUARY 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/january-2024-report
Monthly Traffic Safety Analysis
8,234 CRASHES IN
CHICAGO, IL
JANUARY 2024
In January 2024, Chicago experienced 8,234 total crashes, a 1.59% increase from the 8,105 crashes recorded in January 2023. The most significant year-over-year shift was a substantial 73.33% decrease in total fatalities, falling from 15 to 4.
8,234
▲ 1.6%was 8,105
Total Crash Events
4
▼ -73.3%was 15
Persons Killed
1,555
▲ 4.5%was 1,488
Persons Injured
2,481
▼ -5.7%was 2,630
Hit-and-Run Crashes
Note: "Persons Killed" (4) counts individual fatalities across all crash events. "Fatal" in the severity table below (4) counts crash events where at least one fatality occurred. A single crash can result in multiple fatalities. 16 crashes with unreported severity are not shown in the severity breakdown.
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2024-01-01 to 2024-01-31 · Aggregate counts from crash, person, and vehicle records
Trend Summary
Overall crash incidents in Chicago saw a slight increase of 1.59%, rising from 8,105 in January 2023 to 8,234 in January 2024. Despite this, total fatalities decreased significantly by 73.33%, from 15 to 4, while total injuries increased by 4.5% from 1,488 to 1,555.
2,481
Hit-and-Run Crashes — January 2024
▼ -5.7% vs prior (2,630)
The number of hit-and-run crashes decreased by 149, falling from 2,630 in January 2023 to 2,481 in January 2024. This resulted in a reduction of the hit-and-run rate from 32.4% to 30.1% of all crashes.
Vulnerable Road User Casualties
1
Pedestrians Killed
0
Cyclists Killed
3
Motorists Killed
0
Other Killed
230
Pedestrians Injured
26
Cyclists Injured
1,297
Motorists Injured
2
Other Injured
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2024-01-01 to 2024-01-31 · Mode classified from person records (driver/passenger → motorist; pedestrian; bicyclist → cyclist; in-line skater / unspecified → other)
When Crashes Happen
The peak day for crashes shifted from Tuesday in January 2023 (1,291 crashes) to Wednesday in January 2024 (1,337 crashes), representing a 332-crash increase on Wednesdays. The peak hour for crashes remained consistently at 3 p.m. in both periods, with 621 crashes in January 2023 increasing to 659 crashes in January 2024.
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2024-01-01 to 2024-01-31 · Crash date field aggregated by weekday
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2024-01-01 to 2024-01-31 · Crash time field aggregated by hour (0-23)
Crash Severity Breakdown
Total fatalities saw a notable decrease of 73.33%, falling from 15 in January 2023 to 4 in January 2024, with the fatal crash rate decreasing from 0.19% to 0.05%. While serious injury crashes decreased from 133 to 114, possible injury crashes increased from 326 to 442, indicating a shift in the distribution of injury severities.
Outcome by Severity (Crash Events)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2024-01-01 to 2024-01-31 · KABCO injury classification scale
Severity Distribution
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2024-01-01 to 2024-01-31 · Most severe injury per crash record
Top Contributing Factors
The factor 'WEATHER' saw a substantial increase in count, rising by 86.07% from 201 instances in January 2023 to 374 in January 2024, causing its share of crashes to increase from 2.5% to 4.5%. 'FAILING TO YIELD RIGHT-OF-WAY' remained the leading contributing factor, with counts increasing slightly from 901 to 907, representing an 11.1% share in 2023 and an 11% share in 2024.
Officer-Reported Primary Contributing Cause
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2024-01-01 to 2024-01-31 · Officer-reported primary contributory cause per crash
Road & Environmental Conditions
Adverse weather conditions contributed to a higher number of crashes in January 2024, with crashes during snow increasing by 21.68% (from 1,001 to 1,218) and during rain by 46.23% (from 703 to 1,028). Correspondingly, crashes on wet road surfaces increased by 25.47% (from 1,747 to 2,192) and on snow or slush by 92.79% (from 707 to 1,363), while crashes on dry roads decreased by 28.66% (from 4,413 to 3,148).
Weather
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2024-01-01 to 2024-01-31 · Weather condition at time of crash
Lighting
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2024-01-01 to 2024-01-31 · Lighting condition field
Road Surface
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2024-01-01 to 2024-01-31 · Road surface condition field
Vehicles & Demographics
The 35-44 age group saw a significant increase in persons involved in crashes, rising by 365 individuals from 2,228 to 2,593 year-over-year. Conversely, younger age groups, particularly 16-20, experienced a decrease of 138 individuals involved in crashes, falling from 903 to 765. Toyota remained the top vehicle make involved in crashes, increasing from 1,849 to 2,026 instances.
Top Vehicle Makes (16,610 vehicles)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2024-01-01 to 2024-01-31 · Vehicle unit records
5,115 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 (17,153 persons with recorded sex)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2024-01-01 to 2024-01-31 · Person-level records linked to crash events
Speed Limit Zones
The 30 mph speed zone continued to account for the highest number of crashes, increasing from 5,947 in January 2023 to 6,059 in January 2024. Notably, fatalities within the 30 mph zone decreased substantially from 12 to 2, leading to a significant reduction in the fatal rate for this zone from 0.202% to 0.033%. Crashes in the 45 mph zone saw an increase from 79 to 83, accompanied by one fatality in January 2024 where there were none in the prior year.
Fatal crashes by zone: 25 mph: 1 of 563 (0.178%) · 30 mph: 2 of 6,059 (0.033%) · 45 mph: 1 of 83 (1.205%)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2024-01-01 to 2024-01-31 · 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: 2024-01-01 through 2024-01-31
- Report generated: June 1, 2026
Data Coverage
- Reporting period: 2024-01-01 through 2024-01-31 (31 days)
- Geographic scope: Chicago, IL
- Total crash records analyzed: 8,234
- Total persons involved: 17,479
- Total vehicles involved: 16,610
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/january-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: 2024-01-01 – 2024-01-31
Generated: June 1, 2026 · All rights reserved