Chicago, Illinois – Briskman Briskman & Greenberg has released a comprehensive analysis of four years of City of Chicago crash records, covering every reported collision from 2022 through 2025. The study documents a city whose roads are producing contradictory outcomes: dramatic progress on fatal crashes alongside a steady rise in injury crashes that shows no sign of reversing.

Over the four-year period, the City of Chicago recorded 440,326 total crashes, 96,213 injuries, and 518 fatalities. Fatal crashes fell 37% from 2022 to 2025. Injury crashes rose 11.6% over the same period, and the share of all crashes that injured at least one person climbed from 14.79% in 2022 to 16.40% in 2025.

Fatal Crashes Are Down Significantly

The clearest positive signal in the data is the decline in fatal crashes. After peaking at 143 fatal collisions in 2023, the count dropped to 111 in 2024 and 85 in 2025, a 40.6% reduction from the peak. Total fatalities followed the same trajectory, falling from 151 in 2023 to 94 in 2025. The fatal crash rate fell from 0.13% of all crashes in 2023 to 0.08% in 2025, nearly cut in half.

The data suggests the improvement is driven by fewer catastrophic collisions occurring in the first place. The average number of fatalities per fatal crash held steady across all four years, meaning survival rates once a crash occurs did not meaningfully change. Fewer of the deadliest crashes are happening at all.

Injury Crashes Are Rising

The countertrend is harder to dismiss. Injury crashes rose from 16,034 in 2022 to a peak of 18,442 in 2024, before pulling back modestly to 17,898 in 2025. That 2025 figure still sits 11.6% above 2022. The total number of people injured rose from 22,093 in 2022 to 24,954 in 2025, a 12.9% increase. Across all four years, more than 96,000 people were injured on Chicago roads.

When a collision happens in Chicago today, it is meaningfully more likely to hurt someone than it was in 2022.

The Fastest-Growing Injury Category Is the Hardest to See

Breaking down injuries by severity reveals a pattern with significant implications for crash victims. Incapacitating injuries, the most serious non-fatal category, declined 25.3% over the four-year period, from 2,287 in 2022 to 1,709 in 2025. Non-incapacitating injuries held essentially flat, rising just 1.5% net.

The category that changed most dramatically was reported-not-evident injuries: soft-tissue damage, whiplash, and concussions that victims report but that are not visually apparent at the scene. This category rose from 6,919 in 2022 to 10,220 in 2025, a 47.7% increase. It is the fastest-growing injury category in the dataset.

These are also the injuries insurance companies dispute most aggressively. When an officer at the scene does not observe visible harm, insurers routinely use that absence to challenge the severity or cause of a claim. The data shows these injuries are real, increasingly common, and legally consequential.

What This Means for Injured Chicagoans

Car accident lawyer, Paul Greenberg, said “The surge in reported-not-evident injuries has direct consequences for anyone pursuing compensation after an accident. Soft-tissue injuries and concussions often present hours or days after a collision. Early medical evaluation is critical, both for recovery and for building the documentation needed to protect your rights.”

The firm advises all crash victims to seek medical attention immediately after any collision, photograph the scene and preserve all available evidence, and consult with an attorney before speaking with insurance companies. With injury claims rising across the city, insurers have a strong incentive to contest individual claims and push early settlements that fall short of covering the full cost of recovery.

The firm also notes that as hit-and-runs become more prevalent, victims are not without legal recourse. Uninsured motorist coverage may provide a path to compensation even when the at-fault driver is never identified.

The full report, including year-over-year breakdowns, injury severity analysis, and complete crash data from 2022 through 2025, is available on the firm’s website.