Crash Atlas · City of Chicago · Data study
Where Trucks Kill in Chicago
Eight years of truck-involved fatal and severe-injury collisions mapped by arterial, intersection, and time of day - 2017 through 2024.
Key findings
- 66 people killed in truck-involved collisions in the city of Chicago between 2017 and 2024, across 549 fatal or incapacitating-injury crashes. Severe injuries totalled 567.
- Vision Zero Chicago is working - for truck deaths. The city adopted Vision Zero in mid-2017 with a target of zero traffic deaths by 2026. Truck-involved deaths went from 11 in 2017 to 6 in 2024 - that's ↓ 45.5% over the period. Counter to the national trend on traffic deaths overall.
- The deadliest corridors are arterials, not freeways. Pulaski Rd, Ashland Ave, Western Ave, and Cicero Ave - all long north-south arterials cutting through the West and Southwest Sides - carry the most truck KSI crashes. The interstate segments (I-90/94, I-55) are in IDOT jurisdiction and not in this dataset. The city-street pattern is what Chicago Vision Zero can actually act on.
- Peak crash hour is 9 AM - delivery rush, not late night. 43 crashes happened at hour 9. The 6-10 AM morning delivery window accounts for 23.1% of all KSI crashes. Driver fatigue is less of a factor here than in highway-dominant metros; this is loading-zone and intersection collision territory.
- Box trucks and dump trucks kill more than big rigs. Single-unit trucks (box / dump / delivery) account for 339 truck-party involvements vs 155 for tractor-semi combinations. Opposite of port metros: Chicago's truck deaths are local-delivery, not through-freight.
- 25 pedestrians and 4 cyclists were killed by trucks over 8 years. Pedestrian victims skew younger than in highway-dominant metros - young adults and working-age people crossing or walking near arterial corridors during commercial hours.
Truck crash map
542 geocoded crash locations (98.7% of all KSI collisions). Toggle severity and adjust the year range to filter. Click any point for date, location, and victim details.
… / … crashes
Static downloads: points.csv · points.json
Year-over-year, with Vision Zero baseline
Vision Zero Chicago launched in June 2017. The original target was zero traffic deaths by 2026. Truck-involved deaths have trended downward overall - rare positive Vision Zero data point. 2024 is preliminary and will revise.
| Year | Fatal crashes | Severe-injury crashes | People killed | Pedestrians killed | Bicyclists killed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 10 | 36 | 11 | 1 | 0 |
| 2018 | 10 | 77 | 12 | 4 | 1 |
| 2019 | 8 | 75 | 9 | 6 | 0 |
| 2020 | 3 | 66 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
| 2021 | 12 | 57 | 12 | 5 | 2 |
| 2022 | 8 | 62 | 8 | 3 | 1 |
| 2023 | 5 | 69 | 5 | 3 | 0 |
| 2024* | 5 | 46 | 6 | 2 | 0 |
* 2024 figures are preliminary; the Chicago Open Data Portal updates with a 6-12 month lag for police reports to clear.
Top arterials - Chicago city streets with the most truck KSI crashes
City of Chicago surface streets only. Interstate highways through Chicago (I-90/94, I-55, I-57, I-294) are in IDOT jurisdiction and would appear in a separate state-level dataset.
| Street | KSI crashes | Deaths | Severe injuries |
|---|---|---|---|
| PULASKI RD | 29 | 4 | 34 |
| WESTERN AVE | 23 | 2 | 29 |
| CICERO AVE | 23 | 3 | 24 |
| ASHLAND AVE | 23 | 4 | 22 |
| KEDZIE AVE | 18 | 2 | 22 |
| 79TH ST | 11 | 1 | 11 |
| NORTH AVE | 10 | 2 | 10 |
| IRVING PARK RD | 9 | 0 | 13 |
| ROOSEVELT RD | 9 | 3 | 8 |
| HALSTED ST | 9 | 0 | 10 |
| ARCHER AVE | 8 | 2 | 8 |
| 59TH ST | 8 | 4 | 6 |
| STATE ST | 8 | 0 | 8 |
| PERSHING RD | 7 | 1 | 6 |
| GRAND AVE | 7 | 0 | 8 |
By hour of day
Chicago truck KSI crashes cluster in the morning-to-afternoon delivery window. The 6-10 AM block alone accounts for 23.1% of crashes. This is loading-zone and intersection-collision time, not the late-night fatigue pattern seen in port-and-highway metros.
| Hour (24h) | KSI crashes |
|---|---|
| 00:00 | 11 |
| 01:00 | 9 |
| 02:00 | 11 |
| 03:00 | 13 |
| 04:00 | 11 |
| 05:00 | 9 |
| 06:00 | 15 |
| 07:00 | 32 |
| 08:00 | 37 |
| 09:00 | 43 |
| 10:00 | 28 |
| 11:00 | 38 |
| 12:00 | 40 |
| 13:00 | 37 |
| 14:00 | 41 |
| 15:00 | 31 |
| 16:00 | 29 |
| 17:00 | 20 |
| 18:00 | 19 |
| 19:00 | 20 |
| 20:00 | 13 |
| 21:00 | 10 |
| 22:00 | 19 |
| 23:00 | 13 |
What kind of trucks, and who was hit
Truck type (party-level)
From City of Chicago vehicle records for KSI crashes. Single-unit trucks (box, dump, delivery) outnumber tractor-semi combinations roughly 2-to-1 - the opposite of port-and-highway metros.
| Vehicle type | Parties |
|---|---|
| Single-unit truck (box / dump) | 339 |
| Tractor + semi-trailer (big rig) | 155 |
| Single-unit truck w/ trailer | 42 |
| Tractor (bobtail) | 34 |
Pedestrian victims killed, by age
25 pedestrians killed by trucks 2017-2024. Distribution skews younger than highway-dominant metros.
| Age group | Killed |
|---|---|
| Child (0-17) | 2 |
| Young adult (18-34) | 7 |
| Working age (35-54) | 5 |
| Pre-senior (55-64) | 4 |
| Senior (65+) | 5 |
Methodology
- Data source: City of Chicago Open Data Portal
(Socrata), accessed 2026-05-25. Three tables joined locally:
Traffic Crashes - Crashes (
85ca-t3if), Vehicles (68nd-jvt3), People (u6pd-qa9d). data.cityofchicago.org. - Jurisdiction: City of Chicago only. Interstate highways through Chicago (I-90/94, I-55, I-57, I-294) are reported to the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) and are not in this city-level dataset. A separate metro-area study would require merging IDOT's statewide dataset.
- Date range: 2017-01-01 through 2024-12-31. Records prior to 2017 in this dataset are sparse - Chicago police began consistent electronic crash reporting in mid-2017 (coinciding with the Vision Zero launch). We exclude 2015-2016 to avoid undercount bias. 2024 figures are preliminary; final reconciliation typically lands 6-12 months after year-end.
- Truck-involved definition: at least one party on
the crash with
vehicle_typein TRACTOR W/ SEMI-TRAILER, TRACTOR W/O SEMI-TRAILER, SINGLE UNIT TRUCK WITH TRAILER, or TRUCK - SINGLE UNIT. Pickups are excluded - they're a separate category in the Chicago dataset and not "commercial trucks" in the conventional sense. - Severity filter: KSI - Killed or Severely Injured.
A crash is KSI if either
injuries_fatal > 0orinjuries_incapacitating > 0(Illinois IDOT K-A-B-C-O classification, where K=killed, A=incapacitating). Lower-severity categories are excluded from headline numbers. - Geocoding: we use the lat/lon supplied directly by Chicago Police on each crash report. 98.7% of KSI records carried valid coordinates. Points outside the Chicago city bounding box (lat 41.6-42.05, lon -87.95 to -87.5) were excluded as geocoding errors.
- Pedestrian / cyclist victims: identified from
the People table where
person_type= PEDESTRIAN or BICYCLE andinjury_classification= FATAL. - Reproducibility: the data-pull and aggregation scripts are published alongside the data download. Anyone with an internet connection (no API key required - Socrata is open) can re-derive these numbers from the same source.
Cite this report
Republish freely under CC BY 4.0. Link back to this page so readers can verify and follow updates.
https://accidentlawyerreview.com/research/crash-atlas/illinois/chicago/
For custom data slices on deadline - a specific street corridor, ZIP, time window, or victim demographic - email research@accidentlawyerreview.com. We can usually return a custom CSV within 24 hours.
Download the data
- points.csv - 542 geocoded KSI collisions, one row per crash.
- points.json - same data in JSON for direct import into mapping libraries.
- summary.json - headline aggregate figures.
- yoy.json, top_streets.json, hour_of_day.json, truck_type_breakdown.json, ped_victim_age_buckets.json - individual chart datasets.
Data licensed under CC BY 4.0. Republish freely; attribution requested as above.
Update log
- 2026-05-25 - Initial publication.
- Q3 2026 (planned) - refresh with finalised 2024 data + preliminary 2025.
AccidentLawyerReview is an independent public-data directory of US personal-injury law firms. We are not a law firm and do not provide legal advice. This study aggregates publicly available crash data and is offered for journalists, researchers, and the public; it does not interpret any specific legal claim.