Cars significantly more dangerous than guns in New York, new data shows

New York is the safest big city in the country — unless you’re near a car. Motor vehicles are significantly deadlier than guns in New York, new NYPD data shows. Crashes involving cars, vans, trucks and buses killed 111 people on city streets during the first six months of 2019, public data shows.

During the same period, 61 people died in shootings, the NYPD says. Those shootings account for 45% of the city’s 135 homicides during 2019′s first half. Police say the city is on a path to have the lowest number of murders since 1950, and that gun deaths over the full year will be 25% down from 2018.

Motor vehicles are also deadlier than guns in car-loving major metros like Los Angeles, Houston and San Diego, data shows.

But in New York, where only one in four residents commute via motor vehicle, data shows that the city has done a much better job of curbing gun violence in recent years than traffic deaths.