A red pickup was involved in a hit-and-run near Kostner and 48th around 4:30 a.m. over the weekend, damaging a sedan and several parked cars before leaving the area, according to CBS News Chicago. The driver had not been identified in the station’s account.
The crash sent the sedan skidding onto the sidewalk of the residential street, according to CBS News Chicago. After the initial collision, the pickup reportedly hit several parked cars while backing up, then accelerated away, striking additional vehicles as it fled the scene. Surveillance video captured the entire sequence, but the station reports the truck's license plate was never visible in the footage.
The sedan's driver, a 26-year-old man, got out of his car and waved his arms as the pickup drove past, the outlet reports. He later told the station he was feeling shoulder, thigh and back pain, though he did not go to the hospital.
Neighbors Count the Damage
Pedro Rodriguez’s car was among those damaged. The CBS News Chicago report said paint from the red pickup remained on his vehicle, and the impact dented a door so badly that it no longer locks all the way and stays cracked open.
Rodriguez told the station he was devastated by the damage and said of the reckless driving, “You can't just be driving recklessly. It could have been worse. He could have killed someone.”
The owner of a GMC Denali also told the station the pickup driver did not stop or provide insurance information, leaving the owner facing repair costs. CBS News Chicago separately reported that surveillance cameras captured the truck speeding away on Kilbourn.
Search for the Driver Continues
Archer Heights neighbors are now trying to track down the driver themselves, and police are involved in efforts to locate the pickup, the station's report states. Rodriguez said he hopes the person responsible is eventually found.
This is not the first time a hit-and-run involving a pickup truck has rattled the Archer Heights neighborhood. In February 2024, a pickup driver struck and killed 68-year-old Jiekun Xu as she crossed Pulaski Road at 44th Street before fleeing, according to Streetsblog Chicago, which reported the collision happened just before 5 p.m. in the 4300 block of South Pulaski Road, a detail also reported by the Chicago Sun-Times. Accounts of that truck's make differ: the Sun-Times reported police said it could have been a Ford F150 or a Ram 1500, while Streetsblog identified it as a Dodge Ram. Streetsblog also noted Xu was the fourth pedestrian or bike rider fatally struck on Pulaski Road in under a year, and described the intersection where she died as having seven lanes and no pedestrian islands.
What Police Records Say About a Separate Fatal Hit-and-Run
The Chicago Police Department reported that a 68-year-old woman was killed after being struck by an unknown vehicle while crossing in a crosswalk at 4:51 p.m. on February 8, 2024, in the 4300 block of South Pulaski Road. The alert identified the vehicle as unknown and does not establish whether it was later identified.
More recently, the Chicago Police Department issued a community alert dated April 7, 2026, concerning a separate fatal hit-and-run in the 1000 block of South Kostner.
A Citywide Pattern of Dangerous Crashes
The Archer Heights crash fits into a broader pattern documented in Chicago's crash data. Right-angle, or T-bone, collisions were the most common type of crash resulting in serious or fatal injuries citywide in 2024, accounting for 24 percent of such incidents, according to Streetsblog Chicago's review of the city's annual traffic crashes report. The same report found pedestrians suffered the highest share of hit-and-run crashes that year, at 42 percent.
There is some encouraging news in the broader numbers: Chicago saw an 18.5 percent decrease in people killed or seriously injured in crashes between 2021 and 2024, and the 1,896 people seriously injured in 2024 marked the lowest total since 2012, per Streetsblog's reporting. Still, for residents on Kostner Avenue nursing dented doors and sore backs, the weekend's hit-and-run is a fresh reminder that the person behind the wheel remains unaccounted for.
