4 ms·

>“With approximately 70 auto burglaries a day” That doesn’t seem like a crisis in a city the size of San Francisco.

httpsterio 7y ago
San Fran has rougly 800k people and assuming that 70 cars gets stolen a day and everyone there has a car, that's a 3% chance that your car will get stolen within a year. This doesn't obviously address the issue that I doubt there's even 400k cars there which more than doubles the likelyhood. That's not nothing, it's over 25k stolen cars in a year and an enormous burden on the local police force.
- stefan_ 7y ago
  3%? That seems fine, lock your bike to a light post and keep it overnight, I estimate the likelihood it's going to be stolen at 100%. Of course, with both cars and bikes, police have much more important to do. That's the invariant: whatever the crime, there is surely something more worthy of their attention out there, so nothing is ever done.
  - negrit 7y ago
    What kind of argument is that, its not a race to the bottom...
    - michaelscott 7y ago
      Don't think parent is making an argument, just an observation. From personal experience where I live, most people wouldn't bother to even report a stolen bicycle or broken car window because there's so much more serious crime (gang violence etc) that police will inevitably treat your "petty" case as less important. It's terrible, but it's just the way of things in some places.
  - brewdad 7y ago
    Want to solve more car break-in and bike theft cases? Authorize the police to roll the helicopters and armored personnel carriers to catch suspects. We've bought police all these toys and their not going to want to work a case unless they get to use them. I'm only half-joking.
- jmkb 7y ago
  Car burglary != car theft. The 70/day number refers to break-ins, generally a broken car window and stolen belongings -- loose change, usb charger, fuzzy dice, laptop, whatever.
  - gruez 7y ago
    Don't forget the side window that costs a few hundred (at least) to replace.
    - yellowapple 7y ago
      Yep, which is exactly why I haven't replaced mine after it got busted. Instead I "rebuilt" it with clear Gorilla Tape and a Prop 65 sign (because everything in California causes cancer, apparently). Naturally, it's the one window that even my Haynes Book says "don't try replacing it yourself; hire a professional". Thanks, guy-who-desperately-wanted-my-jumper-cables-and-jump-box-out-of-the-back-of-my-car. Real considerate of you.
    - asdff 7y ago
      I've been burgled (sp?) twice now and both times the window was intact. I think people who do this regularly have the tools the cops and tow guys have. Makes it look waay discrete rifling in a car with the door opened normally, you could probably do it in broad daylight in front of the police station and be fine. Smash and grab makes sense if you don't have those tools and know no one, not even pedestrians, react to broken glass or car alarms in that part of town.
  - goobynight 7y ago
    While I agree the car theft is different, let's not pretend losing your window and several goods (potentially linked to your livelihood) is simple to deal with.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
BuildTheRobots 7y ago
Google suggests there's approx 500,000 cars in SF (as of 2015). 70 burglaries a day is approx 0.01% of all cars. edit: slightly disappointed I was downvoted for this; I literally just googled how many cars there were in SF and tried to work out the percentage. Am I factually incorrect? If not, can someone please explain what I've done wrong so I don't do it again, please.
- fernandopj 7y ago
  And if you see httpsterio's comment, that's 0,01% a day, 3,65% in a year, which is huge. Insurance must be crazy high to accept that level of risk on average.
  - matt4077 7y ago
    As others pointed out, this is break-ins, not cars being stolen. Typical cost of a break-in is one window. I have no idea how much that costs, but let's say $1000, which is probably 10x too much. That comes out to $1000 x 0.0364 = $36/yr.
    - merpnderp 7y ago
      This mindset that crime shouldn't be punished is so strange to me. Why is it okay for someone to go around breaking windows and stealing stuff? Because when the people realize they're suckers for following the law, they'll stop following the law, then everyone will be doing it, and there won't be enough police in the world to pick up the pieces.
  - elefantastisch 7y ago
    0.01% per day is not 3.65% per year. It's close, but that's not the correct way to combine probabilities. (If it were, flipping a coin twice would be guaranteed to produce a head because 50% + 50% = 100%) For calculating probabilities, it's much easier to work in fractions than percentages, so I'll convert 0.01% to 0.0001 and equivalent for other percentages for the remainder of this comment. If every day of the year, 0.01% of cars are broken into, the probably of being broken into is 0.0001 and the probably of being safe is 0.9999. To calculate the odds for a year, you need to take the being safe probability to the 365th power (0.9999^365). That gives 0.9642. This is the probability of being safe from break-ins for a year. You can subtract from 1 for the annual odds of being broken into: 0.0358. 0.01% per day is 3.58% per year. Also can continue to get longer term odds. Break-in chance is 30% over 10 years. At 19 years, it's 50/50 whether you'll be broken into. At this term, you get a big deviation from the incorrect calculation, which would give 0.01 * 19 * 365 = 69.35% chance of break-in over 19 years. Of course, this ignores the uneven distribution of break-ins, etc., etc.

San Fran has rougly 800k people and assuming that 70 cars gets stolen a day and everyone there has a car, that's a 3% chance that your car will get stolen within a year. This doesn't obviously address the issue that I doubt there's even 400k cars there which more than doubles the likelyhood. That's not nothing, it's over 25k stolen cars in a year and an enormous burden on the local police force.

stefan_ 7y ago
3%? That seems fine, lock your bike to a light post and keep it overnight, I estimate the likelihood it's going to be stolen at 100%. Of course, with both cars and bikes, police have much more important to do. That's the invariant: whatever the crime, there is surely something more worthy of their attention out there, so nothing is ever done.
- negrit 7y ago
  What kind of argument is that, its not a race to the bottom...
  - michaelscott 7y ago
    Don't think parent is making an argument, just an observation. From personal experience where I live, most people wouldn't bother to even report a stolen bicycle or broken car window because there's so much more serious crime (gang violence etc) that police will inevitably treat your "petty" case as less important. It's terrible, but it's just the way of things in some places.
- brewdad 7y ago
  Want to solve more car break-in and bike theft cases? Authorize the police to roll the helicopters and armored personnel carriers to catch suspects. We've bought police all these toys and their not going to want to work a case unless they get to use them. I'm only half-joking.
jmkb 7y ago
Car burglary != car theft. The 70/day number refers to break-ins, generally a broken car window and stolen belongings -- loose change, usb charger, fuzzy dice, laptop, whatever.
- gruez 7y ago
  Don't forget the side window that costs a few hundred (at least) to replace.
  - yellowapple 7y ago
    Yep, which is exactly why I haven't replaced mine after it got busted. Instead I "rebuilt" it with clear Gorilla Tape and a Prop 65 sign (because everything in California causes cancer, apparently). Naturally, it's the one window that even my Haynes Book says "don't try replacing it yourself; hire a professional". Thanks, guy-who-desperately-wanted-my-jumper-cables-and-jump-box-out-of-the-back-of-my-car. Real considerate of you.
  - asdff 7y ago
    I've been burgled (sp?) twice now and both times the window was intact. I think people who do this regularly have the tools the cops and tow guys have. Makes it look waay discrete rifling in a car with the door opened normally, you could probably do it in broad daylight in front of the police station and be fine. Smash and grab makes sense if you don't have those tools and know no one, not even pedestrians, react to broken glass or car alarms in that part of town.
- goobynight 7y ago
  While I agree the car theft is different, let's not pretend losing your window and several goods (potentially linked to your livelihood) is simple to deal with.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

BuildTheRobots 7y ago

Google suggests there's approx 500,000 cars in SF (as of 2015). 70 burglaries a day is approx 0.01% of all cars. edit: slightly disappointed I was downvoted for this; I literally just googled how many cars there were in SF and tried to work out the percentage. Am I factually incorrect? If not, can someone please explain what I've done wrong so I don't do it again, please.

fernandopj 7y ago
And if you see httpsterio's comment, that's 0,01% a day, 3,65% in a year, which is huge. Insurance must be crazy high to accept that level of risk on average.
- matt4077 7y ago
  As others pointed out, this is break-ins, not cars being stolen. Typical cost of a break-in is one window. I have no idea how much that costs, but let's say $1000, which is probably 10x too much. That comes out to $1000 x 0.0364 = $36/yr.
  - merpnderp 7y ago
    This mindset that crime shouldn't be punished is so strange to me. Why is it okay for someone to go around breaking windows and stealing stuff? Because when the people realize they're suckers for following the law, they'll stop following the law, then everyone will be doing it, and there won't be enough police in the world to pick up the pieces.
- elefantastisch 7y ago
  0.01% per day is not 3.65% per year. It's close, but that's not the correct way to combine probabilities. (If it were, flipping a coin twice would be guaranteed to produce a head because 50% + 50% = 100%) For calculating probabilities, it's much easier to work in fractions than percentages, so I'll convert 0.01% to 0.0001 and equivalent for other percentages for the remainder of this comment. If every day of the year, 0.01% of cars are broken into, the probably of being broken into is 0.0001 and the probably of being safe is 0.9999. To calculate the odds for a year, you need to take the being safe probability to the 365th power (0.9999^365). That gives 0.9642. This is the probability of being safe from break-ins for a year. You can subtract from 1 for the annual odds of being broken into: 0.0358. 0.01% per day is 3.58% per year. Also can continue to get longer term odds. Break-in chance is 30% over 10 years. At 19 years, it's 50/50 whether you'll be broken into. At this term, you get a big deviation from the incorrect calculation, which would give 0.01 * 19 * 365 = 69.35% chance of break-in over 19 years. Of course, this ignores the uneven distribution of break-ins, etc., etc.