Boston-area road rage.

[randomness]

Some years ago I remember LA getting a lot of crap about people shooting each other on the roads after a couple of incidents. As palmwiz explained, at least one of them was way up in Antelope Valley or something, but LA still got a reputation for highway shootings.

Now, with two road rage shootings in two days in the Boston area, I wonder if the national and international media are giving the story as much play as they did the LA shootings. For one thing, Lynn and Brockton are each closer to Boston than Antelope Valley is to LA.

If not, I think it speaks to differences in the images people have of the two cities. I'm particularly wondering what kinds of stories people elsewhere are hearing about the story.

[Edit: two stories from the Globe:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/08/04/mother_and_son_shot_after_traffic_dispute/
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/08/03/brockton_traffic_argument_ends_in_tragedy/]

Comments

[nafe.livejournal.com]

I don't know about media coverage, but the whole thing is getting added to my already miles long list of reasons I'm glad I don't drive.

[uberjay.livejournal.com]

I hadn't even heard about these shootings, interesting.

I really wish I didn't need to drive my car every day.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

(No shit, that story went around my high school for a while...)

Pretty impressive, given what a lot of people think New York is like. Although I guess that changed a lot when Giuliani was mayor.

[dirque.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I call bullshit.

So far this year there have been 26 L.A. freeway shootings. The reputation is well deserved.

heck there were like 2-3 in the one week I was in LA this July.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

So far this year there have been 26 L.A. freeway shootings.

Source, please?

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I call bullshit.

On what? I'm asking a question about city images, Ed.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Or, in my case, were living elsewhere. :)

That works. :)

We actually had a teacher (she quit after a few years) who would get frustrated with how many of the kids she was teaching simply didn't have the sense god gave a gerbil

I think that's one of the occupational hazards of being a teacher, unfortunately.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Note that I found this story: http://www.kfmb.com/stories/story.19322.html, but it seems to include incidents like:

"Three vehicles were struck by pellet gun fire around 3:50 a.m. on the freeway in North Hills, authorities said."

in their overall count:

"In May, the California Highway Patrol formed a task force to examine possible links in the freeway shootings, which now number about two dozen."

I think pellet gun attacks are a little less serious.

[trifle.livejournal.com]

Out here in Seattle and listening to a lot of NPR, I haven't heard a peep about Boston area shootings. In the interest of full disclosure, I haven't heard about any LA shootings either.

[quietann.livejournal.com]

Having lived near both cities, I can tell you one huge difference. Boston is crowded; people live on top of each other and a single street can have really nice homes at one end and crack houses at the other. Or two streets a block apart can be like that. So the "bad neighborhoods" are pockets within neighborhoods, and they are shrinking as the city gets gentrified.

Los Angeles, OTOH, is huge and sprawling (there are something like 12 million people in the metropolitan area, of whom about 4 million are in the city itself.) Futhermore, the neighborhoods tend to be divided by freeways (some of this was done deliberately, to separate the various racial groups), and the neighborhoods are larger and more spread out. The boundaries are much more "real" such that when one is outside one's usual area, it can be pretty scary and unfamiliar. There are areas in LA that are gentrifying, but also huge sprawling housing tracts that are run-down and not worth buying into. (A lot of the tract homes were built to have a 50 year lifespan, in the late 1940s and 1950s.)

[dirque.livejournal.com]

So assuming the 11 count is non-pellet gun incidents... (which could be wrong) I guess my point is that the LA area has a tradition of freeway shootings - dozens annually that leaves the Boston incidents in the dust. With 4 dead so far this year and bounties being posted and accusations of racist freeway gunmen... LA is still top dog.

I suppose bullshit was a bad word. Maybe PSHAW is a better one.

Though to me Boston always had a reputation of rude drivers that give a whole new definition to bumper to bumper traffic. In my mind, I'm amazed that shootings haven't occured sooner and more frequently.





lavoice.org/article730.html

dated July 29th
"Indeed, so far this year, 11 freeway shootings have been reported in which a person or vehicle was hit by gunfire within Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Police Department said. That is two fewer than over the same time period a year ago.

In 2004, 36 freeway-related shootings were reported within Los Angeles, and one resulted in a death. In 2003, four people were killed and 46 incidents reported. (The CHP does not have current statistics on the number of freeway shootings.) Authorities believe that the most recent shootings are unrelated."

[contrariety.livejournal.com]

So, I think you're quite right that there's an image difference--and I think it can be summed up in one word: gangs. Or, in two words: gangs, baby. Just goes to show you that road rage stories aren't about road rage, per se: they're about generalized fear of violence in society. If they were really about road rage, per se, Boston would obviously always have been the epicenter of the story, because, dude. Boston. A more road-rage-inducing driving experience I cannot imagine, and anyone who's ever driven here knows it. Grrrragh.

[cerridwynn.livejournal.com]

So, while i agree with the image differences, well deserved or not, i don't think that's the reason for the lack of news coverage. (Actully, though i've never driven in LA, i do feel much more comfortable beeping at someone in annoyance here than at home in DC. We've been warned against that for years down there.)

And i think that's the reason we haven't heard that much -- at this point road rage is old news. Maybe the first couple of shootings occured in LA (and NY and DC) but it's everywhere now.