Drag racing injures another; this time on American Legion Highway in Mattapan

Drag racing on that stretch of American Legion Highway is all but a proverb.

Back in the day there used to be an entrance to the State Hospital that was on the eastern side of the roadway. This land is now occupied by the Boston nature Center and housing now. However 50 years or so back the state hospital was home to mostly mentally incompetent people with a wide-range of problems from insanity and mental retardation to people with schizophrenia and bipolar disorders. In those days there were no treatments.

The entrance had its own traffic light. There are remnants of the old gate and where the signal was that can still be seen. It was right about where the mulch company sits.

That signal and the one at Walk Hill Street set the stage for the ability for late-night dragging between the signals in both directions. And there were plenty of accidents and likely deaths as well back then. Kids would line up and punch the gas pedal when it turned green.

As to what communities... It's Roslindale on the west side between Walk Hill and Canterbury Street, so the Youth Service facility and the mulch company are legally in Roslindale. The east side of the highway from Walk Hill to Canterbury (at the "Police Post") is in Mattapan. Northerly from there to Blue Hill Ave is usually considered Dorchester. The actual boundaries for police, fire, and election districts vary and each may call parts by other community names which is why sometimes it is not clear.

This. And all around BU.

After word gets around that there's a camera there, what's to stop a drag racer from taping a piece of cardboard over their license plate?

I think the correct solution is for police to stake out the area and use quick-deploy tire spikes, which safely bring vehicles to a stop.

Yes on police presence, and camping out to nab the bastards and put them away.