Gone in 60 Seconds, 74 Times National Rate

Dallas’ W. Commerce Street leads nation in car thefts

Commentary
by Bruce Felps

Dallas can lay claim to bragging rights on yet another national list.

OK, well, bitching rights.

The stretch of West Commerce Street roughly between the point at which it changes names to Fort Worth Avenue and North Beckley Avenue is the site of the greatest number of car thefts in the U.S. and A., according to statistics published at NeighborhoodScout.com. Data shows — show? — that 223.77 cars annually out of every 1,000 residents in that area end up elsewhere before the owners return.

Those are not good odds for someone considering a parking bet.

That’s a 74 times the national average — 3.15 — of stolen cars per 1,000. Wow, there must be one busy and profitable chopshop working in the area.

That one stretch skews the Dallas annual average of 9.57 because if you take out the compound percentile and divide by the median time required to steal a car, multiply by the known-number of car thieves within a three-mile radius on any given Sunday you get, well, a whole lot fewer stolen cars per capita-per annum.

Can’t argue with that math.


Bruce Felps owns and operates East Dallas Times, an online community news outlet serving the White Rock Lake area. A car thief would return his Mazda after stealing it.
 

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