Crime is down in Oakland, and you'd think that would be good news for residents of one of California's most dangerous cities.
But according to local news, this is bad news. For the auto glass industry, that is.
Wait. They really published this headline? They're really going with "crime is down, but Safelite and Glass Doctor are suffering"?
This headline is so ridiculous that we were summoned in the comments.
Here's the story:
A decline in car break-ins across Oakland is being welcomed as a public safety win, but it is also contributing to a downturn for some local auto glass repair businesses.
Police data show a sharp drop in vehicle burglaries over the past year. According to the Oakland Police Department's crime dashboard, car break-ins are down 37 percent year-to-date, comparing May 2025 to May 2026.
At Low Price Auto Glass on San Leandro Street in East Oakland, owner Raj Singh said the decrease has directly impacted a once-reliable portion of his business.
'There is the door glass repair if there is any break-ins or vandalism — that segment of my business has been down about 30 percent,' Singh said.
They're literally posting the broken window fallacy as if it is NOT a fallacy:
Here's a quick summary of the fallacy courtesy of ChatGPT:
The broken windows fallacy is the mistaken belief that destruction helps the economy because it creates jobs to repair the damage. What people see is the repair work; what they don't see is what that money could have been spent on if nothing had been broken. Society is poorer because resources were used to replace something that already existed instead of creating something new.
But apparently KTVU has never heard of this common economic fallacy and went full steam ahead with this story.
Here's more:
Business owners say the decline in break-in-related repairs coincides with other shifts, including a reduction in catalytic converter thefts, rising costs tied to inflation and global supply issues, and increased competition within the industry.
'We noticed this trend about a year ago, about the same time the catalytic converters started to die out, so did the calls for break-ins,' [James] Serwa [owner of Glass on the Move Inc.] said.
To be fair to these shop owners, in the KTVU piece they admitted while it made things tough on them, they are of course happy for the community and glad that crime is decreasing in Oakland.
But to the media? Apparently it's a crying shame.
Some reactions:
And we've gotta include the Far Side reference:
And the media wonders why no one trusts them.
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