Chicago Cycling Safety Data: Deaths, Injuries and What the Numbers Mean

The headline in Chicago is a falling number of deaths. The fuller picture is more mixed. The best source is the Chicago Department of Transportation’s annual crash report, published in fall 2025 and built on 2024 data.¹

Deaths by year

CDOT groups bike and scooter riders together. Its table runs from 2019 to 2024.¹

Year	Bike or scooter deaths	All traffic deaths
2019	51	1201
2020	81	1531
2021	111	1861
2022	101	1601
2023	101	1361
2024	41	1301

The number of people killed while riding a bike or scooter decreased by over 60% from the peak in 2021.¹ Citywide, fatalities have fallen 30% since that peak, while the report puts the national decline at only about 9% over the same period.¹

Injuries tell a different story

Serious injuries fell for everyone together: the total dropped 18% since 2021 to 1,896, the lowest number on record since 2012.¹ For riders the line is flat. CDOT’s series for people on bikes or scooters reads 171, 134, 138, 171, 164 and 172 from 2019 to 2024.¹

So 2024 was a good year for deaths and a flat one for serious injuries.¹ Read the two numbers separately.

When and how crashes happen

• Season. In 2024 the greatest number of bike crashes resulting in a death or serious injury occurred in August.¹
• Turns. Crashes involving left- and right-turning vehicles produced a disproportionately high number of deaths or serious injuries for pedestrians and cyclists.¹
• Hit-and-run. Drivers are much more likely to flee the scene if they hit a pedestrian or cyclist than if they hit another motor vehicle.¹
• Age. The proportion of severe injuries decreases with age categories for cyclists.¹

How the numbers are counted

Counts differ by source, so know what each measures.

The CDOT analysis uses the annual crash datasets provided by the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT). CDOT removes crashes outside Chicago and on the interstate highway system.¹ It also adds dooring crashes, where a person biking collides with a door opened into the roadway, which IDOT tracks separately.¹

The city’s Vision Zero fatality list is compiled by CDOT after monthly reviews of fatal-crash information from the Chicago Police Department’s Major Accident Investigation Unit.² CDOT uses a standardized process, sometimes differing from other sources, to decide whether a death is a traffic fatality.² Illinois counts any death caused by a crash involving a motor vehicle within 30 days.² The list is updated monthly, then edited to match IDOT’s findings once IDOT publishes the year.²

That is why the Vision Zero list can differ from the fatal crashes in the full Traffic Crashes dataset.²

What works, according to CDOT

CDOT points to street design. Evaluating neighborhood greenways with two years of post-installation data, it found zero cyclist deaths or serious injuries on project corridors.¹ On Milwaukee Avenue, dooring crashes decreased by 85% from Western Avenue to California Avenue after project installation.¹ The report names size and speed of vehicles, reckless driving and persistent inequities as the three key issues.³ Its strategies include protected bike lanes, context-sensitive lane widths and left-turn traffic calming.³

For the lane types behind this, see Chicago bike lanes.

The caveat from advocates

Not everyone reads the data as a success. Nik Hunder of Bike Grid Now told Streetsblog that crashes involving bicycles have been rising since the implementation of the city’s Chicago Cycling Strategy.³ He said that through November 2025 there were 2,323 crashes, with 72.2 percent resulting in injury, a 49 percent increase.³ For comparison, he cited 1,557 crashes through November 2022.³

Press counts for 2025

Streetsblog Chicago, which tallies people struck on surface streets, reaches its final count in late January.⁴ It recorded two bike deaths in 2025 and, for 2024, 38 people struck on foot and five on bikes.⁴ CDOT’s table lists four bike or scooter deaths for 2024, against Streetsblog’s five on bikes. CDOT’s four is the figure this page uses.

What to do with this

Use the data to choose your route and your hours. Take the protected lane over the paint-only one, slow for turning cars, and ride with extra care in August. If a crash happens, what to do after a bike crash lays out the steps. The rules of the road are in the Chicago bike laws, and the laws hub lists the rest.