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> I started talking with the driver about crime surges, mainly the dramatic car jackings increase. He said 22 people he personally knew have been victims of car

> I started talking with the driver about crime surges, mainly the dramatic car jackings increase. He said 22 people he personally knew have been victims of car jacking in 2021. This sounds like a typical made-up crime panic narrative, honestly. The linked story being about a car left running with an infant in it being stolen doesn't help. Terrible, but not at all some boxed-in high octane car theft. Sibling posts chimed in about actually living there and this not being a thing. I don't live there, so can only search the news, but any stories about car thefts I'm seeing include warnings from the police for people to stop leaving their cars heating up with the keys in them. We should endeavor to not buy into moral panics but act on data. We've seen from history that good reactions basically never come from decisive responses to crime waves that are actually constructed narratives from a data point or two.

computershit 5y ago
I live in Minneapolis proper and my car was stolen last month. Not a carjacking, I was one of the idiots that left it running to warm up. The car jacking numbers are mostly legit, I do not know if it’s “organized” though. Catalytic converters getting stolen is a much bigger deal out here right now.
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  My family has a friend who had his catalytic converter stolen while eating at a restaurant with his wife in the afternoon. Brazen?
StopTheWorld 5y ago
In some localities and for some time periods, you are more likely to be a victim of homicide as a taxi driver than as a police officer or security guard (in other localities and time periods, policing is usually more deadly). In terms of non-fatal assaults, taxi drivers are right up there with police officers and security guards. The NIOSH and the US Department of Health and Human Services, and Department of Labor, have studies of this going back to the 1990s (https://www.taxi-library.org/oshataxi.pdf https://www.taxi-library.org/oshataxi.pdf ). Taxi drivers make easy crime targets for a number of reasons. They carry cash, they can be lured to virtually any remote (or easy to escape) location, they are working alone, they are working late at night. Between 1992 and 1997, at least 50 cab drivers were murdered each year while at work. There may or may not be a recent surge in a specific location, but it has been a dangerous profession for a long time.
- nonameiguess 5y ago
  I'm perfectly willing to believe the parent that this driver really did tell him this. But 22 people you personally know in a single year doesn't pass a basic smell test. I lived in South Bay LA in the early 90s when there was legitimately a statistical wave of carjacking when it was first invented and crime in general was huge multiples of what it is now, and I never knew a single person it happened to personally, over my lifetime so far, let alone a single year. I can accept professional drivers are at much greater risk compared to the average daily driver, but do rideshare drivers actually know each other? This sounds very much like a 2020s Polly Klaas situation where one or two spectacular stories actually happen and the legislature starts responding and we end up with decades of three-strikes law doing thousands of times as much harm as ever happened from girls being kidnapped out of their bedrooms.
  - snovv_crash 5y ago
    I lived in South Africa and personally know 3 people who were car-jacked. One was shot in the chest (and since recovered). One the car was broken down so they just lost their wallets and phones. I also know 5 other people who have had their cars stolen (while they weren't in them). This includes 2 direct family members. If you're a taxi driver, and all your friends are taxi drivers, I can easily imagine knowing 5x more.
grapescheesee 5y ago
I agree with you. Facts should govern our responses, but what I said wasn't "made-up crime panic." Unless my Lyft driver was doing so. The driver was genuine and I believe nothing he said was based in creating panic or a false narrative. You can believe me or not, but I have nothing to gain. As this was an experience in the words of another person I meet going from MSP to a friends house. He seemed sincerely fearful and despondent talking about it.
- Spooky23 5y ago
  Lyft drivers have no agency. They get punished for not taking fares. Traditional cabs would just never book calls or avoid perceived dangerous locations.
codyogden 5y ago
> for people to stop leaving their cars heating up with the keys in them Yes. Letting your car warm up or idling unattended with the keys inside even if you lock the doors is specifically illegal in Minneapolis. It was made illegal specifically to curb car theft opportunities.
- dontcare007 5y ago
  I wonder when they will make short skirts illegal to cut down on rapes? Same principle, IMO.
  - lapsedacademic 5y ago
    1. There is a clear causal link between leaving your keys in the ignition and having your car stolen. There is not a even a clearly established correlation between dress and rape, much less causal evidence. 2. There is an obvious difference between a law telling you not to leave your keys in an unlocked car and a law telling you how to dress.
  - snovv_crash 5y ago
    What, exactly, is the purpose of car keys if you're going to leave them in the car?
    - yuliyp 5y ago
      Minnesota (especially the northern part) gets REALLY cold in the winter. People with remote starters will start their car remotely if it's been parked outside more than an hour. People without those may want go outside, start the car, then go wait inside to avoid freezing your butt off for 5 minutes while the car gets to a driveable and habitable temperature.
      - snovv_crash 5y ago
        Yeah, but then your car might as well have a "start" button, keys aren't necessarily. Lots of cars let you take out the keys when the ignition is in "armed" state for this reason exactly. No need to leave the keys in the ignition while you aren't there.
anarticle 5y ago
There is an uptick in carjackings in my city. The data for Philadelphia is >700 in 2021 which is nearly double or more of previous years. As you say, do not buy into moral panic, but do not minimize the very real damage this is doing to cities. Getting held up in your car with a gun is not warming up your car. This is not as many newcomers like to say "just life in the city", it is a big change from the 2010s. Many people are getting cameras at their houses because it makes insurance payouts easier when something goes wrong. Otherwise you end up on the legal treadmill to get back to where you were. Here's my anecdata: neighbor from my block got his car stolen, joy ride until suspension broke, thieves totaled the inside by cooking drugs inside it. Neighbor gets 8k for his car from insurance (Honda CRV 2010sish). Now has to deal with current market on cars, ends up going new getting Mazda CX off a boat because no cars on the lot. These guys are a professor and nurse, so this put a good dent in their income. One other fun data point, is now carjackings are turning into shootings as people in the city don't expect police to do anything so there is an uptick in concealed carry for ride share drivers and delivery people. The box in tactic has only been seen in a couple instances here in Philadelphia. The case I saw (in the neighborhood next to mine) they rear ended the guy, and when they got out to talk/exchange info passenger popped out and pulled a gun on the driver. The driver was armed, as they got into his car he shot the dude driving and then shot the other car's driver. Total mayhem. Cops thought he was the carjacker until witnesses told the story and showed camera evidence. I'm not advocating for any particular solution or outcome, but that is the weather pattern in Philadelphia.
xyzzy21 5y ago
Well we already know the political affiliations of OP and OP of OP.
supergeek133 5y ago
It is not, based on the number of reported carjackings/thefts, 1% of the population of Minneapolis has either been carjacked or had their car stolen. That's just Minneapolis. That's WILD. I live here, it's happening in broad daylight, and becoming more violent. Last week we had an amber alert because someone stole a car with a 1 year old in it.
- halpert 5y ago
  Wow that’s a crazy statistic. Do you have a source?
  - supergeek133 5y ago
    Yeah it was someone that was aggregating data of their own goodwill and posting it on a neighborhood Facebook group. This is the map he made of all of them (Reported ones): https://maps.co/map/619333f95e2d8772482744czk0b21d4?fbclid=IwAR3hB3n53V7KR9-4U-eBLzAPaaewYHTRWdgWvlyN0ZQYgaAPViOWq-MXktY https://maps.co/map/619333f95e2d8772482744czk0b21d4?fbclid=I... The numbers he broke down like this: This doesn’t include car thefts, which there have been an additional 3387. Between car thefts and carjackings (robbery with car theft), there have been a total of 3879 cars taken, almost 1% of the population of Minneapolis have had their car taken in 2021, and 4035 car thefts/carjackings in 2020. As of 2019 the population of Minneapolis was 420,324. So 1% of that is ~4,200. Now not all 420k residents own a car, so considering the % of car owners is a smaller number the percentage is probably higher. Still crazy to me.
computershit 5y ago
The Star Tribune actually just released a breakdown of carjackings in Minneapolis by neighborhood (Edina won't show up here since its a suburb, this is just to illustrate that it is not just a handful of incidents in the city). Keep in mind that these are actual carjackings, not just auto theft (there were over 4,000 of those in the same timeframe). https://www.startribune.com/a-breakdown-of-2021-carjackings-in-minneapolis-by-neighborhood-map/600134704/ https://www.startribune.com/a-breakdown-of-2021-carjackings-...
lapsedacademic 5y ago
Car thefts really are up across the country. This is unsurprising given the surging price of used cars & car parts.
- Minor49er 5y ago
  I'd say it's unsurprising in Minneapolis since they've been actively curbing their police force https://alphanews.org/minneapolis-city-council-now-wants-more-police/ https://alphanews.org/minneapolis-city-council-now-wants-mor...
  - lapsedacademic 5y ago
    Also up in places that haven't been actively curbing their police forces...

computershit 5y ago

I live in Minneapolis proper and my car was stolen last month. Not a carjacking, I was one of the idiots that left it running to warm up. The car jacking numbers are mostly legit, I do not know if it’s “organized” though. Catalytic converters getting stolen is a much bigger deal out here right now.

gjsman-1000 5y ago
My family has a friend who had his catalytic converter stolen while eating at a restaurant with his wife in the afternoon. Brazen?

StopTheWorld 5y ago

In some localities and for some time periods, you are more likely to be a victim of homicide as a taxi driver than as a police officer or security guard (in other localities and time periods, policing is usually more deadly). In terms of non-fatal assaults, taxi drivers are right up there with police officers and security guards. The NIOSH and the US Department of Health and Human Services, and Department of Labor, have studies of this going back to the 1990s (https://www.taxi-library.org/oshataxi.pdf https://www.taxi-library.org/oshataxi.pdf ). Taxi drivers make easy crime targets for a number of reasons. They carry cash, they can be lured to virtually any remote (or easy to escape) location, they are working alone, they are working late at night. Between 1992 and 1997, at least 50 cab drivers were murdered each year while at work. There may or may not be a recent surge in a specific location, but it has been a dangerous profession for a long time.

nonameiguess 5y ago
I'm perfectly willing to believe the parent that this driver really did tell him this. But 22 people you personally know in a single year doesn't pass a basic smell test. I lived in South Bay LA in the early 90s when there was legitimately a statistical wave of carjacking when it was first invented and crime in general was huge multiples of what it is now, and I never knew a single person it happened to personally, over my lifetime so far, let alone a single year. I can accept professional drivers are at much greater risk compared to the average daily driver, but do rideshare drivers actually know each other? This sounds very much like a 2020s Polly Klaas situation where one or two spectacular stories actually happen and the legislature starts responding and we end up with decades of three-strikes law doing thousands of times as much harm as ever happened from girls being kidnapped out of their bedrooms.
- snovv_crash 5y ago
  I lived in South Africa and personally know 3 people who were car-jacked. One was shot in the chest (and since recovered). One the car was broken down so they just lost their wallets and phones. I also know 5 other people who have had their cars stolen (while they weren't in them). This includes 2 direct family members. If you're a taxi driver, and all your friends are taxi drivers, I can easily imagine knowing 5x more.

grapescheesee 5y ago

I agree with you. Facts should govern our responses, but what I said wasn't "made-up crime panic." Unless my Lyft driver was doing so. The driver was genuine and I believe nothing he said was based in creating panic or a false narrative. You can believe me or not, but I have nothing to gain. As this was an experience in the words of another person I meet going from MSP to a friends house. He seemed sincerely fearful and despondent talking about it.

Spooky23 5y ago
Lyft drivers have no agency. They get punished for not taking fares. Traditional cabs would just never book calls or avoid perceived dangerous locations.

codyogden 5y ago

> for people to stop leaving their cars heating up with the keys in them Yes. Letting your car warm up or idling unattended with the keys inside even if you lock the doors is specifically illegal in Minneapolis. It was made illegal specifically to curb car theft opportunities.

dontcare007 5y ago
I wonder when they will make short skirts illegal to cut down on rapes? Same principle, IMO.
- lapsedacademic 5y ago
  1. There is a clear causal link between leaving your keys in the ignition and having your car stolen. There is not a even a clearly established correlation between dress and rape, much less causal evidence. 2. There is an obvious difference between a law telling you not to leave your keys in an unlocked car and a law telling you how to dress.
- snovv_crash 5y ago
  What, exactly, is the purpose of car keys if you're going to leave them in the car?
  - yuliyp 5y ago
    Minnesota (especially the northern part) gets REALLY cold in the winter. People with remote starters will start their car remotely if it's been parked outside more than an hour. People without those may want go outside, start the car, then go wait inside to avoid freezing your butt off for 5 minutes while the car gets to a driveable and habitable temperature.
    - snovv_crash 5y ago
      Yeah, but then your car might as well have a "start" button, keys aren't necessarily. Lots of cars let you take out the keys when the ignition is in "armed" state for this reason exactly. No need to leave the keys in the ignition while you aren't there.

anarticle 5y ago

There is an uptick in carjackings in my city. The data for Philadelphia is >700 in 2021 which is nearly double or more of previous years. As you say, do not buy into moral panic, but do not minimize the very real damage this is doing to cities. Getting held up in your car with a gun is not warming up your car. This is not as many newcomers like to say "just life in the city", it is a big change from the 2010s. Many people are getting cameras at their houses because it makes insurance payouts easier when something goes wrong. Otherwise you end up on the legal treadmill to get back to where you were. Here's my anecdata: neighbor from my block got his car stolen, joy ride until suspension broke, thieves totaled the inside by cooking drugs inside it. Neighbor gets 8k for his car from insurance (Honda CRV 2010sish). Now has to deal with current market on cars, ends up going new getting Mazda CX off a boat because no cars on the lot. These guys are a professor and nurse, so this put a good dent in their income. One other fun data point, is now carjackings are turning into shootings as people in the city don't expect police to do anything so there is an uptick in concealed carry for ride share drivers and delivery people. The box in tactic has only been seen in a couple instances here in Philadelphia. The case I saw (in the neighborhood next to mine) they rear ended the guy, and when they got out to talk/exchange info passenger popped out and pulled a gun on the driver. The driver was armed, as they got into his car he shot the dude driving and then shot the other car's driver. Total mayhem. Cops thought he was the carjacker until witnesses told the story and showed camera evidence. I'm not advocating for any particular solution or outcome, but that is the weather pattern in Philadelphia.

xyzzy21 5y ago

Well we already know the political affiliations of OP and OP of OP.

supergeek133 5y ago

It is not, based on the number of reported carjackings/thefts, 1% of the population of Minneapolis has either been carjacked or had their car stolen. That's just Minneapolis. That's WILD. I live here, it's happening in broad daylight, and becoming more violent. Last week we had an amber alert because someone stole a car with a 1 year old in it.

halpert 5y ago
Wow that’s a crazy statistic. Do you have a source?
- supergeek133 5y ago
  Yeah it was someone that was aggregating data of their own goodwill and posting it on a neighborhood Facebook group. This is the map he made of all of them (Reported ones): https://maps.co/map/619333f95e2d8772482744czk0b21d4?fbclid=IwAR3hB3n53V7KR9-4U-eBLzAPaaewYHTRWdgWvlyN0ZQYgaAPViOWq-MXktY https://maps.co/map/619333f95e2d8772482744czk0b21d4?fbclid=I... The numbers he broke down like this: This doesn’t include car thefts, which there have been an additional 3387. Between car thefts and carjackings (robbery with car theft), there have been a total of 3879 cars taken, almost 1% of the population of Minneapolis have had their car taken in 2021, and 4035 car thefts/carjackings in 2020. As of 2019 the population of Minneapolis was 420,324. So 1% of that is ~4,200. Now not all 420k residents own a car, so considering the % of car owners is a smaller number the percentage is probably higher. Still crazy to me.

computershit 5y ago

The Star Tribune actually just released a breakdown of carjackings in Minneapolis by neighborhood (Edina won't show up here since its a suburb, this is just to illustrate that it is not just a handful of incidents in the city). Keep in mind that these are actual carjackings, not just auto theft (there were over 4,000 of those in the same timeframe). https://www.startribune.com/a-breakdown-of-2021-carjackings-in-minneapolis-by-neighborhood-map/600134704/ https://www.startribune.com/a-breakdown-of-2021-carjackings-...

lapsedacademic 5y ago

Car thefts really are up across the country. This is unsurprising given the surging price of used cars & car parts.

Minor49er 5y ago
I'd say it's unsurprising in Minneapolis since they've been actively curbing their police force https://alphanews.org/minneapolis-city-council-now-wants-more-police/ https://alphanews.org/minneapolis-city-council-now-wants-mor...
- lapsedacademic 5y ago
  Also up in places that haven't been actively curbing their police forces...