ThatCarHitMe.com
An Injuria.ai Company
YEAR-OVER-YEAR CRASH REPORT · CHICAGO, IL · OCTOBER 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/october-2025-report
Monthly Traffic Safety Analysis
9,053 CRASHES IN
CHICAGO, IL
OCTOBER 2025
In October 2025, Chicago experienced 9,053 total crashes, a decrease of 838 crashes or 8.47% compared to the 9,891 crashes in October 2024. Total fatalities decreased from 11 to 8, marking a 27.27% reduction year-over-year. The most notable shift was the significant decrease in total fatalities.
9,053
▼ -8.5%was 9,891
Total Crash Events
8
▼ -27.3%was 11
Persons Killed
2,211
▼ -6.7%was 2,371
Persons Injured
2,752
▼ -9.5%was 3,042
Hit-and-Run Crashes
Note: "Persons Killed" (8) counts individual fatalities across all crash events. "Fatal" in the severity table below (7) counts crash events where at least one fatality occurred. A single crash can result in multiple fatalities. 23 crashes with unreported severity are not shown in the severity breakdown.
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-10-01 to 2025-10-31 · Aggregate counts from crash, person, and vehicle records
Trend Summary
Overall, crash data for October shows a downward trend year-over-year, with total crashes decreasing by 838, or 8.47%. This reduction indicates a general improvement in traffic safety metrics for the month compared to the previous year.
2,752
Hit-and-Run Crashes — October 2025
▼ -9.5% vs prior (3,042)
The number of hit-and-run crashes decreased from 3,042 in October 2024 to 2,752 in October 2025. The hit-and-run rate also saw a slight decrease, moving from 30.8% to 30.4% of total crashes year-over-year.
Vulnerable Road User Casualties
3
Pedestrians Killed
0
Cyclists Killed
5
Motorists Killed
0
Other Killed
254
Pedestrians Injured
196
Cyclists Injured
1,745
Motorists Injured
16
Other Injured
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-10-01 to 2025-10-31 · 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 Thursday in October 2024 (1,679 crashes) to Friday in October 2025 (1,676 crashes). While the peak hour remained 3 p.m. in both periods, the number of crashes during this hour decreased from 830 in October 2024 to 710 in October 2025.
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-10-01 to 2025-10-31 · Crash date field aggregated by weekday
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-10-01 to 2025-10-31 · Crash time field aggregated by hour (0-23)
Crash Severity Breakdown
The fatal crash rate decreased from 0.1% in October 2024 to 0.08% in October 2025. Fatal crashes decreased from 10 to 7, while serious injury crashes increased from 125 to 131. The proportion of total injury crashes (Serious, Minor, Possible) remained relatively stable, at 17.31% in October 2024 and 17.26% in October 2025.
Severity is per crash event (most severe injury). 7 fatal crash events resulted in 8 persons killed.
Outcome by Severity (Crash Events)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-10-01 to 2025-10-31 · KABCO injury classification scale
Severity Distribution
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-10-01 to 2025-10-31 · Most severe injury per crash record
Top Contributing Factors
The top three contributing factors remained consistent year-over-year: 'FAILING TO YIELD RIGHT-OF-WAY', 'FOLLOWING TOO CLOSELY', and 'IMPROPER OVERTAKING/PASSING'. Crashes attributed to 'FAILING TO YIELD RIGHT-OF-WAY' decreased by 81 (6.55%), and 'FOLLOWING TOO CLOSELY' decreased by 126 (13.80%). Notably, crashes involving 'UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF ALCOHOL/DRUGS' decreased significantly from 42 to 23, a 45.24% reduction in count.
Officer-Reported Primary Contributing Cause
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-10-01 to 2025-10-31 · Officer-reported primary contributory cause per crash
Road & Environmental Conditions
Crashes occurring in 'CLEAR' weather decreased by 977, while those in 'RAIN' increased by 152, leading to a higher proportion of rain-related crashes (7.14% vs 4.99%). Similarly, crashes on 'DRY' road surfaces decreased by 898, but crashes on 'WET' road surfaces increased by 164, shifting the proportion of wet road crashes from 5.84% to 8.19%. Crashes occurring in 'DARKNESS, LIGHTED ROAD' conditions saw a slight increase of 79.
Weather
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-10-01 to 2025-10-31 · Weather condition at time of crash
Lighting
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-10-01 to 2025-10-31 · Lighting condition field
Road Surface
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-10-01 to 2025-10-31 · Road surface condition field
Vehicles & Demographics
The total number of vehicles involved in crashes decreased from 20,201 in October 2024 to 18,439 in October 2025, a reduction of 1,762 vehicles. The top three vehicle makes involved in crashes (Toyota, Chevrolet, Ford) remained the same, although their individual counts decreased year-over-year. All age groups experienced a decrease in the number of persons involved in crashes.
Top Vehicle Makes (18,439 vehicles)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-10-01 to 2025-10-31 · Vehicle unit records
5,703 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 (19,460 persons with recorded sex)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-10-01 to 2025-10-31 · Person-level records linked to crash events
Speed Limit Zones
The 30 mph speed limit zone continued to account for the highest number of crashes in both periods, though the count decreased from 7,431 to 6,709 crashes. Fatalities in the 30 mph zone also decreased from 10 to 5. Crashes in the 20 mph zone decreased from 458 to 373, while crashes in the 40 mph zone slightly increased from 92 to 97, with 1 fatal crash in the current period compared to none in the prior period.
Fatal crashes by zone: 20 mph: 1 of 373 (0.268%) · 30 mph: 5 of 6,709 (0.075%) · 40 mph: 1 of 97 (1.031%)
Source: Chicago Traffic Crashes · Socrata Open Data · 2025-10-01 to 2025-10-31 · 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: 2025-10-01 through 2025-10-31
- Report generated: June 1, 2026
Data Coverage
- Reporting period: 2025-10-01 through 2025-10-31 (31 days)
- Geographic scope: Chicago, IL
- Total crash records analyzed: 9,053
- Total persons involved: 19,834
- Total vehicles involved: 18,439
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/october-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: 2025-10-01 – 2025-10-31
Generated: June 1, 2026 · All rights reserved