Murders & car crashes

Neither number is great.

Murders & car crashes
Police officers at the railroad tracks on Bannister Lane in South Austin last spring.

There were a couple years when murders claimed nearly as many lives in Austin as car crashes, but now things are back to normal: cars are killing about twice as many people as guns and knives.

I originally intended for this to be a straightforward article based on indisputable public information, but in seeking the figures I was reminded how bad the city of Austin – and APD in particular – is at managing and sharing data.