I haven't seen data on this, but my intuition is the opposite: that all violent crime would tend to be correlated with the murder rate. That's partly because any violent crime can easily escalate to a murder. Maybe I'm wrong though. I'm not finding a clear answer with some cursory googling, but I'd imagine this has been studied.

Outside of the COVID-19 pandemic, the murder rate was highly correlated with the violent crime rate. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it became less correlated as more people died due to a lack of available emergency healthcare while hospital systems were overloaded.

What?

Source please

This would be true if crimes were all reported, but most low-level violence isn't.

There’s also enough variance in how things get classified by police departments that a lot of studies just end up counting murder and manslaughter since those are pretty standard and hard to fudge.

I think there is probably some correlation there.

That said, if you ignore NY, Central counties of large metro lead the way in homocide and therefore would likely lead the way in non letal violence. The country and fringe suburbs are much safer on average from homicide by there on measure.

It is only when you add in other causes you see deaths in the country rise.

Exactly. And I think the really interesting question here is: why is the murder rate in New York City so much lower than in other large metro areas?

It's a really good question. If I were to guess I would think that one factor would be cost of living pushing high-risk individuals out of the city. Violent crime is closely tied to economic status. Maybe there's some big policy wins in there too but that is where I would start.

High population density seems like another likely factor. In a lot of NYC, and especially in Manhattan, there are people out on the streets at all hours. I assume that discourages crime.

It’s cars that scare me and I’m not afraid of being killed. Car violence strikes pretty much at random. Homicide victims usually did something that enhanced their risk. You can cut your chances of being killed by orders of magnitude simply by not being a criminal or associating with criminals. There is no corresponding action you can take to be safe from road accidents.

>There is no corresponding action you can take to be safe from road accidents.

I think you can cut your chances of being killed in a road accident significantly by controlling your alcohol intake and using common sense. Something like 60% of pedestrian road deaths are intoxicated pedestrians.

> Something like 60% of pedestrian road deaths are intoxicated pedestrians.

Do you have a source for this? I looked up your claim and found this study from the NHTSA[0] (pg 23), which does say that 60% of pedestrians hit have a BAC over 0.08; the catch is, that number is specifically for crashes which occur between 12:00AM and 3:00AM.

From pg 26 - "Of the pedestrians involved [in fatal crashes across all hours], 33 percent were intoxicated, with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.08 grams per deciliter (g/dl) or greater."

Since the NHSTA study I linked was conducted in 2001, it's possible that new information has been made available in recent years; if that is the case and that's where your data comes from, feel free to link.

[0] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/8094... - pg 23

I think you have the right numbers. I was just going off the top of my head based on last time I looked at it.

For some reason your link isn't working, but I was using this report[1]

33% percent of pedestrians were intoxicated, which matches your number.

Another 16% of the pedestrians were on freeways or interstates.

There is no number, but I would guess using a smartphone when crossing streets and not using cross walks are also big risk factors.

I say this not to "blame the victim" but point out that if someone is concerned about being hit by a car, there are a number of simple steps that the pedestrian can take to drastically reduce their risk.

https://www.ghsa.org/sites/default/files/2020-02/GHSA-Pedest...

By the same hand, a very high % of those murder victims were probably engaged in some criminal activity or the victim of intimate partner violence, both of which are not particularly worrisome to me.

Sure, I think there are certainly risk factors on both sides.

> Homicide victims usually did something that enhanced their risk

Like... take the subway in NYC [1]? Homicide victims in normal cities that don't have mentally deranged homeless roaming the streets usually did something that enhanced their risk. Homicide victims in NYC... had the unfortunate luck to be selected by mentally ill homeless that should have been institutionalized.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/man-wanted-pushing-woman-on...

This is a weird example to respond with, since there's no homicide. The woman didn't die.

So far, in 2022, there have been 4 homicides on the NYC subway. Considering that about 3 million people ride it each weekday (which, in turn, is far below the pre-COVID numbers), I'll take my chances versus our national car deaths statistics.

4 homicides already this year and it's not even August? I read on HN that between 1990 and 2003 there had been just 10 homicides in the very same subway and it allegedly had been much more dangerous in that period of time [1]. Seeing that the population only grew by ~15% since 1990 it looks like a huge increase in murder rate. What's going on there?

1.https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32223533

Subway crime rates have risen substantially in the last two years; it remains to be seen whether that’ll become a long-term trend. In particular, as ridership numbers return to normal, the rate seems to be going down.

Even with the 2022 rise, the subway remains substantially safer than any other form of transit.

>Even with the 2022 rise, the subway remains substantially safer than any other form of transit.

By miles traveled or by the total number of deaths occurred while traveling?

Both. The subway is safer by these four metrics:

* Number of deaths, miles traveled

* Number of deaths, per capita commuter

* Number of deaths from violent crime or negligence, miles traveled

* Number of deaths from violent crime or negligence, per capita commuter

So, to be safer than 0.07 death per billion miles in air travel and still have at least 4 death (there might be more deaths from other causes) and assuming nobody will die the rest of the year, also given 3M daily commuters from your numbers it appears the average commute in NYC subway is more than 52 miles?

What's the point of being intentionally obtuse? We're talking about commuter transit, which doesn't include airplanes.

I read what you wrote, I cannot read your mind, sorry about that.

> since there's no homicide. The woman didn't die.

Yes, so it wouldn't have shown up in your touted homicide stats, yet the fact that it happened makes everyone who rides the subway feel less safe.

How many attempted homicides, attempted muggings, stalkings, etc. are there that never get reported?

However people might feel (and they might feel less safe!) does not detract from the raw factuality that the subway is extremely safe. If people died and were maimed on America's highways at the rate they are in NYC's subways, we'd save tens of thousands of lives and livelihoods yearly.

> How many attempted homicides, attempted muggings, stalkings, etc. are there that never get reported?

Do you have a source indicating that NYC underreports these crimes uniquely, and not merely that they're generally underreported? Our police are generally zealous when it comes to violent crime statistics, since it allows them to pump the Fear Machine and keep public support up.

There's a certain, urm, unique element of gangs that disproportionately lives in large cities like NYC and those people like to keep their business as their business (even as victims of violence) and not police business. I'm not sure how much difference it makes but I'd find it to believe there's not a huge amount of gang crime that doesn't get reported, and disproportionally so.

I'm sure most of their deaths end up getting found out sooner or later, if they're someone who will be missed. Anything lesser probably ain't gonna be found out if it's gang on gang. This is the kind of stuff that you can kind of 'feel in the air' but can't prove because no gang is going to let Professor Squiggles nerd up on his sociology study during the next hit.

A couple of things:

* “Like NYC” is doing a lot of work here. NYC has organized crime, but not a lot of violent organized crime anymore. There’s a reason the handwringing over MS-13 focused on the suburbs of Long Island and not NYC.

* There’s a lot of “it just doesn’t feel right to me” floating around whenever someone points out, statistically, that NYC is both far safer than its recent history and far safer than the rest of the country. And it’s perfectly reasonable that people would feel that way, because it is unintuitive! But unintuitive feelings don’t trump numbers, and there’s no real evidence (including from sources that have a strong incentive to make crime seem as bad as possible) that massive amounts of violent and property crime are going unreported.

Yes there is not evidence because the gangs and those living under their thumb do not reveal the evidence to police. As I said, no one is inviting Professor Squiggles or woodruffw the computer hacker on the next hit. I'll be the first to admit it's not provable, I've said that all along. It probably never will be provable, and despite your claims that NYPD is happy to report crime I can assure you NYPD is still scared shitless of getting in a gunfight with organized crime except in the narrowest of circumstances where they have controlled conditions and a planned out mission to ambush their enemy alone. NYPD has as much incentive to let sleeping dogs lie as much as the gangs do. They have zero incentive to make it look like their cops need to be doing something that is likely to get them hurt -- much easier to cite some yuppie dunce for a DUI or something -- and aside, "going home safe to your family comes first."

Living in the city is one of those places where the statistics sound nice but not going off your intuition eventually catches up to you.

But we're not talking about investigative evidence; we're talking about dead human bodies. I don't need to do a gang ridealong to confirm or refute the crime statistics, unless you think that the NYPD is massively undercounting the number of suspected homicides in the city (and again, in a way that's disproportionate with homicides in the rest of the country).

(The stuff about firefights similarly confuses this -- I have no doubt that the NYPD is afraid of getting into gunfights. But that has absolutely nothing to do with the routine paperwork of recording a homicide victim.)

Intuition is meant to comport with ground reality, and the ground reality is that NYC is not gangland anymore (and hasn't been for decades). Other cities might still be, but we aren't.

I'm willing to consider what you say is true (earlier you said violent crime, so I'm going to revert back to that here rather than just homicide which is harder to hide). Also willing to consider it is not.

Ultimately recorded crime data should be used as an aid to guide our decisions, in combination with other signals. I would consider your view reckless in light of deciding how to go about my life in the city, but ultimately it is your decision to make and I hope it guides you well.

Most homicides in the cities are not like what is being described here. Most homicides you read about in the news might be though.

"Usually" vs a noteworthy example.

I would love to see how the numbers compare

The driver also typically gets off totally free using the "oopsie" defense. Example: https://chicagoreader.com/columns-opinion/why-did-the-drunk-...

> Car violence strikes pretty much at random.

This sounds like an extraordinary claim, what data are you using to get there?

Completely unpredictable and impossible-to-prevent car crashes do happen sometimes, but they are a very tiny minority. Most car crashes have a clear chain of events that led to them that could've been prevented.