ThatCarHitMe.com
An Injuria.ai Company
YEAR-OVER-YEAR CRASH REPORT · CHICAGO, IL · MARCH 2017
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/march-2017-report
Monthly Traffic Safety Analysis
5,105 CRASHES IN
CHICAGO, IL
MARCH 2017
Total crashes in March 2017 were 5105, a substantial increase from 2916 crashes in March 2016, representing a 75.07% rise. The most notable year-over-year shift was in total fatalities, which increased from 1 in March 2016 to 5 in March 2017, a 400% increase. Total injuries also rose from 262 to 367, marking a 40.08% increase.
5,105
▲ 75.1%was 2,916
Total Crash Events
5
▲ 400.0%was 1
Persons Killed
367
▲ 40.1%was 262
Persons Injured
1,424
▲ 90.1%was 749
Hit-and-Run Crashes
Note: "Persons Killed" (5) counts individual fatalities across all crash events. "Fatal" in the severity table below (3) counts crash events where at least one fatality occurred. A single crash can result in multiple fatalities. 8 crashes with unreported severity are not shown in the severity breakdown.
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2017-03-01 to 2017-03-31 · Aggregate counts from crash, person, and vehicle records
Trend Summary
The overall trend indicates a significant increase in crash activity year-over-year. Total crashes rose by 75.07%, while total fatalities saw a substantial 400% increase. Total injuries also increased by 40.08% between March 2016 and March 2017.
1,424
Hit-and-Run Crashes — March 2017
▲ 90.1% vs prior (749)
Hit-and-run crashes increased in count from 749 in March 2016 to 1424 in March 2017. The hit-and-run rate also increased from 25.7% of all crashes in the prior period to 27.9% in the current period. This indicates an upward trend in both the absolute number and the proportion of hit-and-run incidents.
Vulnerable Road User Casualties
0
Pedestrians Killed
0
Cyclists Killed
5
Motorists Killed
41
Pedestrians Injured
7
Cyclists Injured
319
Motorists Injured
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2017-03-01 to 2017-03-31 · Mode classified from person records (driver/passenger → motorist; pedestrian; bicyclist → cyclist; in-line skater / unspecified → other)
When Crashes Happen
The peak crash day shifted from Thursday in March 2016, with 489 crashes, to Friday in March 2017, with 991 crashes. The peak crash hour also changed, moving from 3 PM with 265 crashes in the prior period to 4 PM with 426 crashes in the current period.
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2017-03-01 to 2017-03-31 · Crash date field aggregated by weekday
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2017-03-01 to 2017-03-31 · Crash time field aggregated by hour (0-23)
Crash Severity Breakdown
The fatal crash rate increased from 0.03% in March 2016 to 0.06% in March 2017. While the share of serious injury crashes remained stable at 0.6%, the proportion of minor injury crashes slightly decreased from 2.6% to 2.4%, and possible injury crashes decreased from 3.2% to 2.3% of all crashes.
Severity is per crash event (most severe injury). 3 fatal crash events resulted in 5 persons killed.
Outcome by Severity (Crash Events)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2017-03-01 to 2017-03-31 · KABCO injury classification scale
Severity Distribution
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2017-03-01 to 2017-03-31 · Most severe injury per crash record
Top Contributing Factors
The leading contributing factor, "FOLLOWING TOO CLOSELY," increased in count from 375 to 583, a 55.47% rise. "FAILING TO YIELD RIGHT-OF-WAY" saw the largest count increase among top factors, more than doubling from 276 to 553, a 100.36% increase. While "FOLLOWING TOO CLOSELY" remained the leading factor, its share decreased from 12.9% to 11.4%, whereas "FAILING TO YIELD RIGHT-OF-WAY" increased its share from 9.5% to 10.8%.
Officer-Reported Primary Contributing Cause
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2017-03-01 to 2017-03-31 · Officer-reported primary contributory cause per crash
Road & Environmental Conditions
The share of crashes occurring in clear weather conditions slightly decreased from 75.58% to 73.73%, while crashes during rain increased from a 9.26% share to 11.26% and snow from 3.84% to 6.70%. Similarly, the proportion of crashes on wet road surfaces increased from 12.41% to 17.65%, and on snow or slush from 2.81% to 6.39%, indicating a shift towards a higher proportion of crashes under adverse conditions.
Weather
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2017-03-01 to 2017-03-31 · Weather condition at time of crash
Lighting
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2017-03-01 to 2017-03-31 · Lighting condition field
Road Surface
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2017-03-01 to 2017-03-31 · Road surface condition field
Vehicles & Demographics
Toyota became the top reported vehicle make in March 2017 with 1236 vehicles, surpassing Chevrolet, which had 1204 vehicles. In the prior period, Chevrolet was the top make with 747 vehicles, followed by Toyota with 691. The proportion of parked vehicles involved in crashes slightly increased from 11.13% to 11.62% year-over-year.
Top Vehicle Makes (10,230 vehicles)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2017-03-01 to 2017-03-31 · Vehicle unit records
3,646 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 (10,876 persons with recorded sex)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2017-03-01 to 2017-03-31 · Person-level records linked to crash events
Speed Limit Zones
The majority of crashes in both periods occurred in the 30 mph speed zone, with counts increasing from 2086 to 3867 crashes. The fatal crash rate in the 30 mph zone decreased from 0.048% to 0.026%. Notably, the 40 mph speed zone, which had no fatal crashes in March 2016, recorded 1 fatal crash out of 45 crashes in March 2017, resulting in a 2.222% fatal rate for that zone.
Fatal crashes by zone: 25 mph: 1 of 286 (0.35%) · 30 mph: 1 of 3,867 (0.026%) · 40 mph: 1 of 45 (2.222%)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2017-03-01 to 2017-03-31 · 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: 2017-03-01 through 2017-03-31
- Report generated: June 1, 2026
Data Coverage
- Reporting period: 2017-03-01 through 2017-03-31 (31 days)
- Geographic scope: Chicago, IL
- Total crash records analyzed: 5,105
- Total persons involved: 11,000
- Total vehicles involved: 10,230
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/march-2017-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: 2017-03-01 – 2017-03-31
Generated: June 1, 2026 · All rights reserved