ThatCarHitMe.com
An Injuria.ai Company
YEAR-OVER-YEAR CRASH REPORT · CHICAGO, IL · JANUARY 2026
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-2026-report
Monthly Traffic Safety Analysis
9,461 CRASHES IN
CHICAGO, IL
JANUARY 2026
Total crashes in January 2026 were 9,461, an increase of 15.08% from 8,221 crashes in January 2025. The most notable year-over-year shift was a 66.67% increase in total fatalities, rising from 6 to 10.
9,461
▲ 15.1%was 8,221
Total Crash Events
10
▲ 66.7%was 6
Persons Killed
1,869
▲ 4.8%was 1,784
Persons Injured
2,686
▲ 10.9%was 2,422
Hit-and-Run Crashes
Note: "Persons Killed" (10) counts individual fatalities across all crash events. "Fatal" in the severity table below (9) 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 · 2026-01-01 to 2026-01-31 · Aggregate counts from crash, person, and vehicle records
Trend Summary
Overall crash trends for January 2026 indicate a notable increase compared to January 2025. Total crashes rose by 15.08%, from 8,221 to 9,461. This increase was accompanied by a significant 66.67% rise in total fatalities, from 6 to 10, and a 4.76% increase in total injuries, from 1,784 to 1,869.
2,686
Hit-and-Run Crashes — January 2026
▲ 10.9% vs prior (2,422)
Hit-and-run crashes increased by 10.98% year-over-year, rising from 2,422 in January 2025 to 2,686 in January 2026. Despite this increase in count, the hit-and-run crash rate decreased slightly from 29.5% to 28.4% of all crashes. This indicates that while the number of hit-and-run incidents grew, the overall proportion relative to total crashes saw a minor decline.
Vulnerable Road User Casualties
1
Pedestrians Killed
1
Cyclists Killed
8
Motorists Killed
0
Other Killed
224
Pedestrians Injured
43
Cyclists Injured
1,599
Motorists Injured
3
Other Injured
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2026-01-01 to 2026-01-31 · 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 Friday in January 2025 (1,619 crashes) to Wednesday in January 2026 (2,056 crashes). The peak crash hour also changed, moving from 3 PM (624 crashes) in the prior period to 8 AM (773 crashes) in the current period, indicating a shift in daily crash patterns.
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2026-01-01 to 2026-01-31 · Crash date field aggregated by weekday
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2026-01-01 to 2026-01-31 · Crash time field aggregated by hour (0-23)
Crash Severity Breakdown
Fatal crashes increased by 50% year-over-year, from 6 in January 2025 to 9 in January 2026, with the fatal crash rate rising from 0.07% to 0.1%. The proportion of serious injury crashes (Severity A) decreased from 1.1% to 0.8%, while minor injury crashes (Severity B) decreased from 8.2% to 7.4%.
Severity is per crash event (most severe injury). 9 fatal crash events resulted in 10 persons killed.
Outcome by Severity (Crash Events)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2026-01-01 to 2026-01-31 · KABCO injury classification scale
Severity Distribution
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2026-01-01 to 2026-01-31 · Most severe injury per crash record
Top Contributing Factors
"FAILING TO YIELD RIGHT-OF-WAY" remained the top contributing factor, increasing from 944 to 985 crashes, a 4.34% rise in count. "FOLLOWING TOO CLOSELY" increased by 203 crashes, from 720 to 923, marking a 28.19% increase in count and rising to the second highest factor. "WEATHER" related crashes saw a substantial 193.01% increase in count, from 272 to 797, making it the third most frequent factor in January 2026 compared to seventh in January 2025.
Officer-Reported Primary Contributing Cause
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2026-01-01 to 2026-01-31 · Officer-reported primary contributory cause per crash
Road & Environmental Conditions
Crashes occurring in "CLEAR" weather conditions saw a slight 0.86% increase in count, from 5,814 to 5,864, remaining the most common condition. "SNOW" related crashes significantly increased by 98.54% in count, from 960 to 1,906. For road surface conditions, "DRY" crashes decreased by 9.84% in count, from 4,686 to 4,225, while crashes on "SNOW OR SLUSH" surfaces more than doubled, increasing by 122.34% in count, from 873 to 1,941.
Weather
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2026-01-01 to 2026-01-31 · Weather condition at time of crash
Lighting
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2026-01-01 to 2026-01-31 · Lighting condition field
Road Surface
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2026-01-01 to 2026-01-31 · Road surface condition field
Vehicles & Demographics
The total number of vehicles involved in crashes increased by 15.59% year-over-year, rising from 16,644 to 19,239. Toyota remained the top vehicle make involved, with its count increasing from 2,028 to 2,502, a 23.37% rise. Chevrolet, which was the second most involved make in the prior period with 1,712 vehicles, was overtaken by Ford, which saw its count increase by 15.28% from 1,675 to 1,930.
Top Vehicle Makes (19,239 vehicles)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2026-01-01 to 2026-01-31 · Vehicle unit records
5,701 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 (20,173 persons with recorded sex)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2026-01-01 to 2026-01-31 · Person-level records linked to crash events
Speed Limit Zones
The majority of crashes in both periods occurred in 30 mph speed zones, which saw a 17.41% increase in crash count from 6,100 to 7,162. Fatal crashes in 30 mph zones increased from 5 to 6, with the fatal rate slightly rising from 0.082% to 0.084%. Crashes in 20 mph zones increased by 31.99% in count, from 347 to 458, and recorded 1 fatal crash in January 2026, compared to none in the prior period.
Fatal crashes by zone: 20 mph: 1 of 458 (0.218%) · 30 mph: 6 of 7,162 (0.084%) · 35 mph: 1 of 436 (0.229%) · 40 mph: 1 of 87 (1.149%)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2026-01-01 to 2026-01-31 · 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: 2026-01-01 through 2026-01-31
- Report generated: June 1, 2026
Data Coverage
- Reporting period: 2026-01-01 through 2026-01-31 (31 days)
- Geographic scope: Chicago, IL
- Total crash records analyzed: 9,461
- Total persons involved: 20,540
- Total vehicles involved: 19,239
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-2026-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: 2026-01-01 – 2026-01-31
Generated: June 1, 2026 · All rights reserved