ThatCarHitMe.com
An Injuria.ai Company
YEAR-OVER-YEAR CRASH REPORT · CHICAGO, IL · MARCH 2022
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-2022-report
Monthly Traffic Safety Analysis
8,552 CRASHES IN
CHICAGO, IL
MARCH 2022
In March 2022, Chicago experienced 8,552 traffic crashes, an 11.37% increase compared to 7,679 crashes in March 2021. Total fatalities rose by 10% from 10 to 11, while total injuries increased by 10.48% from 1,451 to 1,603. The most notable year-over-year shift was a 17.98% increase in crashes attributed to "FAILING TO YIELD RIGHT-OF-WAY."
8,552
▲ 11.4%was 7,679
Total Crash Events
11
▲ 10.0%was 10
Persons Killed
1,603
▲ 10.5%was 1,451
Persons Injured
2,863
▲ 5.7%was 2,708
Hit-and-Run Crashes
Note: "Persons Killed" (11) 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. 12 crashes with unreported severity are not shown in the severity breakdown.
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2022-03-01 to 2022-03-31 · Aggregate counts from crash, person, and vehicle records
Trend Summary
Traffic crashes in Chicago showed an upward trend year-over-year, increasing by 11.37% from 7,679 crashes in March 2021 to 8,552 crashes in March 2022. This rise was accompanied by a 10% increase in total fatalities and a 10.48% increase in total injuries during the same period.
2,863
Hit-and-Run Crashes — March 2022
▲ 5.7% vs prior (2,708)
The number of hit-and-run crashes increased by 155, from 2,708 in March 2021 to 2,863 in March 2022, representing a 5.72% increase in count. Despite this increase in raw numbers, the overall hit-and-run rate decreased from 35.3% to 33.5% of all crashes year-over-year. This indicates a slight downward trend in the proportion of crashes classified as hit-and-run.
Vulnerable Road User Casualties
3
Pedestrians Killed
0
Cyclists Killed
8
Motorists Killed
0
Other Killed
159
Pedestrians Injured
57
Cyclists Injured
1,386
Motorists Injured
1
Other Injured
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2022-03-01 to 2022-03-31 · 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 Monday in March 2021 (1,250 crashes) to Thursday in March 2022 (1,384 crashes). The peak hour for crashes remained 3 PM in both periods, with crash counts increasing from 627 in March 2021 to 697 in March 2022.
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2022-03-01 to 2022-03-31 · Crash date field aggregated by weekday
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2022-03-01 to 2022-03-31 · Crash time field aggregated by hour (0-23)
Crash Severity Breakdown
The fatal crash rate decreased slightly from 0.12% in March 2021 to 0.11% in March 2022, despite the number of fatal crashes remaining at 9. The proportion of crashes resulting in minor injuries decreased from 8.3% to 7.6%, while crashes with possible injuries increased from 3.6% to 4.3%.
Severity is per crash event (most severe injury). 9 fatal crash events resulted in 11 persons killed.
Outcome by Severity (Crash Events)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2022-03-01 to 2022-03-31 · KABCO injury classification scale
Severity Distribution
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2022-03-01 to 2022-03-31 · Most severe injury per crash record
Top Contributing Factors
"FAILING TO YIELD RIGHT-OF-WAY" remained the leading contributing factor, increasing by 144 crashes (17.98% increase in count) from 801 in March 2021 to 945 in March 2022. "FOLLOWING TOO CLOSELY" also saw an increase of 66 crashes (11.06% increase in count), rising from 597 to 663. "IMPROPER OVERTAKING/PASSING" experienced the largest percentage increase among the top factors, growing by 79 crashes (21.41% increase in count) from 369 to 448.
Officer-Reported Primary Contributing Cause
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2022-03-01 to 2022-03-31 · Officer-reported primary contributory cause per crash
Road & Environmental Conditions
Crashes occurring in clear weather decreased by 472 from 6,630 in March 2021 to 6,158 in March 2022, while crashes in rainy conditions significantly increased by 954, from 366 to 1,320. Correspondingly, crashes on dry road surfaces decreased by 670, and crashes on wet road surfaces increased by 1,201, indicating a shift towards more adverse weather and road conditions in March 2022. Crashes during daylight hours increased by 545, from 4,942 to 5,487.
Weather
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2022-03-01 to 2022-03-31 · Weather condition at time of crash
Lighting
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2022-03-01 to 2022-03-31 · Lighting condition field
Road Surface
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2022-03-01 to 2022-03-31 · Road surface condition field
Vehicles & Demographics
The total number of persons involved in crashes increased from 16,259 to 18,310 year-over-year. Notably, the 0-15 age group saw a 23.7% increase in persons involved, rising from 481 to 595, and the 26-34 age group increased by 12.8% from 2,603 to 2,936. While Chevrolet remained the top vehicle make involved, Toyota moved from third to second place in rankings, with its count increasing from 1,482 to 1,830.
Top Vehicle Makes (17,370 vehicles)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2022-03-01 to 2022-03-31 · Vehicle unit records
5,856 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 (17,995 persons with recorded sex)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2022-03-01 to 2022-03-31 · Person-level records linked to crash events
Speed Limit Zones
Crashes in 30 mph zones increased by 761, from 5,565 to 6,326, though the fatal rate in this zone decreased from 0.162% to 0.095%. Conversely, crashes in 35 mph zones decreased from 535 to 511, but the fatal rate in this zone increased from 0% to 0.391% with 2 fatalities. Crashes in 45 mph zones increased from 28 to 73, and this zone recorded 1 fatality in March 2022, up from 0 in the prior period.
Fatal crashes by zone: 30 mph: 6 of 6,326 (0.095%) · 35 mph: 2 of 511 (0.391%) · 45 mph: 1 of 73 (1.37%)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2022-03-01 to 2022-03-31 · 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: 2022-03-01 through 2022-03-31
- Report generated: June 1, 2026
Data Coverage
- Reporting period: 2022-03-01 through 2022-03-31 (31 days)
- Geographic scope: Chicago, IL
- Total crash records analyzed: 8,552
- Total persons involved: 18,310
- Total vehicles involved: 17,370
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-2022-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: 2022-03-01 – 2022-03-31
Generated: June 1, 2026 · All rights reserved