ThatCarHitMe.com
An Injuria.ai Company
YEAR-OVER-YEAR CRASH REPORT · CHICAGO, IL · MARCH 2025
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-2025-report
Monthly Traffic Safety Analysis
8,739 CRASHES IN
CHICAGO, IL
MARCH 2025
In March 2025, Chicago experienced 8739 total crashes, a 2.1% decrease compared to the 8927 crashes recorded in March 2024. The most notable year-over-year shift was a 35.7% reduction in total fatalities, decreasing from 14 in the prior period to 9 in the current period. Total injuries remained largely stable, increasing by a single person from 1941 to 1942.
8,739
▼ -2.1%was 8,927
Total Crash Events
9
▼ -35.7%was 14
Persons Killed
1,942
▲ 0.1%was 1,941
Persons Injured
2,728
▼ -4.0%was 2,842
Hit-and-Run Crashes
Note: "Persons Killed" (9) 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. 21 crashes with unreported severity are not shown in the severity breakdown.
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-03-01 to 2025-03-31 · Aggregate counts from crash, person, and vehicle records
Trend Summary
Overall, the trend indicates a decrease in total crashes year-over-year, with a 2.1% reduction from 8927 to 8739 incidents. Fatalities saw a significant decline of 35.7%, decreasing from 14 to 9. The number of injured persons remained stable, with a minor increase from 1941 to 1942.
2,728
Hit-and-Run Crashes — March 2025
▼ -4.0% vs prior (2,842)
The number of hit-and-run crashes decreased from 2842 in the prior period to 2728 in the current period, a reduction of 114 crashes. The hit-and-run rate also saw a slight decrease, moving from 31.8% of total crashes in the prior period to 31.2% in the current period, indicating a downward trend.
Vulnerable Road User Casualties
3
Pedestrians Killed
0
Cyclists Killed
6
Motorists Killed
0
Other Killed
233
Pedestrians Injured
87
Cyclists Injured
1,617
Motorists Injured
5
Other Injured
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-03-01 to 2025-03-31 · Mode classified from person records (driver/passenger → motorist; pedestrian; bicyclist → cyclist; in-line skater / unspecified → other)
When Crashes Happen
The peak day for crashes remained Friday in both periods, though the count decreased from 1632 in the prior period to 1423 in the current period. The peak hour shifted from 3 PM with 696 crashes in the prior period to 4 PM with 743 crashes in the current period.
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-03-01 to 2025-03-31 · Crash date field aggregated by weekday
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-03-01 to 2025-03-31 · Crash time field aggregated by hour (0-23)
Crash Severity Breakdown
The fatal crash rate decreased from 0.15% in the prior period to 0.1% in the current period, corresponding to a reduction from 13 fatal crashes to 9. Serious injury crashes remained at 112 in both periods, while minor injury crashes increased from 710 to 734. Possible injury crashes also rose from 543 to 569.
Outcome by Severity (Crash Events)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-03-01 to 2025-03-31 · KABCO injury classification scale
Severity Distribution
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-03-01 to 2025-03-31 · Most severe injury per crash record
Top Contributing Factors
The top contributing factor, 'FAILING TO YIELD RIGHT-OF-WAY,' decreased by 23 crashes from 1022 to 999. 'FOLLOWING TOO CLOSELY' increased by 38 crashes, rising from 735 to 773. 'DRIVING SKILLS/KNOWLEDGE/EXPERIENCE' saw an increase of 51 crashes, moving from 352 to 403, while 'FAILING TO REDUCE SPEED TO AVOID CRASH' decreased by 59 crashes, from 372 to 313.
Officer-Reported Primary Contributing Cause
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-03-01 to 2025-03-31 · Officer-reported primary contributory cause per crash
Road & Environmental Conditions
Crashes occurring in CLEAR weather conditions decreased from 7033 to 6496, while crashes in RAIN conditions increased from 769 to 972. Similarly, crashes on DRY road surfaces decreased from 6669 to 6019, whereas crashes on WET surfaces increased from 1060 to 1374. Crashes occurring in DARKNESS, LIGHTED ROAD conditions decreased from 2039 to 1836.
Weather
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-03-01 to 2025-03-31 · Weather condition at time of crash
Lighting
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-03-01 to 2025-03-31 · Lighting condition field
Road Surface
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-03-01 to 2025-03-31 · Road surface condition field
Vehicles & Demographics
The total number of vehicles involved in crashes decreased from 18282 in the prior period to 17772 in the current period. Toyota remained the most frequently involved vehicle make, with counts decreasing from 2204 to 2164. The 35-44 age group saw an increase of 103 persons involved in crashes, rising from 2608 to 2711, while the 26-34 age group experienced the largest decrease of 67 persons, from 3235 to 3168.
Top Vehicle Makes (17,772 vehicles)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-03-01 to 2025-03-31 · Vehicle unit records
5,654 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 (18,794 persons with recorded sex)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-03-01 to 2025-03-31 · Person-level records linked to crash events
Speed Limit Zones
Crashes in the 30 mph speed zone decreased from 6673 to 6518, with the number of fatal crashes remaining at 7 in both periods. The fatal crash rate in the 35 mph zone decreased from 0.397% (2 fatalities out of 504 crashes) to 0.229% (1 fatality out of 436 crashes). Notably, the 40 mph speed zone, which had 2 fatal crashes in the prior period, recorded no fatal crashes in the current period.
Fatal crashes by zone: 10 mph: 1 of 250 (0.4%) · 30 mph: 7 of 6,518 (0.107%) · 35 mph: 1 of 436 (0.229%)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-03-01 to 2025-03-31 · 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: 2025-03-01 through 2025-03-31
- Report generated: June 1, 2026
Data Coverage
- Reporting period: 2025-03-01 through 2025-03-31 (31 days)
- Geographic scope: Chicago, IL
- Total crash records analyzed: 8,739
- Total persons involved: 19,171
- Total vehicles involved: 17,772
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-2025-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: 2025-03-01 – 2025-03-31
Generated: June 1, 2026 · All rights reserved