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Mayhem in the streets of Back Bay as drag racers try fancier digs than their normal Roslindale strip
By adamg on Mon, 04/22/2024 - 9:34am
WFXT reports Boston and State Police responded to the residential area around Dartmouth Street early Sunday morning on reports of upwards of 15 drivers engaged in "drag racing and doing burnouts," many laying rubber the wrong way in the normally quiet area.
In recent years, American Legion Highway in Roslindale and Mattapan has become the go-to stretch for loud, squealing drag racing and associated scootering and ATV stunting.
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Comments
Oh Those Kids
Anyone of you screaming for bike lanes and pedestrian safety and still support the rights of people to do this, please squeeze lemon juice onto a paper cut on your hand.
Why did you just make this about cyclists?
Why the hell would anyone who rides bikes and supports pedestrian safety efforts ever advocate for people being allowed to do this? Reckless and dangerous driving is one of the leading causes of death for pedestrians and cyclists.
On a proper traffic-calmed street, shit like this is impossible. Barrier-protected bike lanes, center medians, and chicanes make this sort of asinine behavior a non-starter.
Your immediate reaction of bringing safe-streets advocates into this and misrepresenting their goals is very telling...
Stop Signs Too
They work.
They help keep streets safe, as long as cars AND bikes obey them.
Not on their own, they don't
They still require enforcement, which we can see was clearly lacking here.
Evidence begs to differ
It can actually be safer for cyclists to idaho-stop a stoplight or stop sign
Stop signs don't make our streets safer. Infrastructure that prevents reckless driving does. I'm talking concrete blocks that will damage and stop a car if it runs into them. Better to damage some panels on a car than to paint the streets red with the blood of pedestrians and cyclists.
Its easy to ignore a stop sign. Its impossible to ignore physics.
Growing up works too
You might try that rather than trumpertoddlertantrums.
Anything for attention.
Anything for attention.
Stop signs work ??!!!
You funny, John John!
Stop Signs are a Suggestion
Bump outs, bollard protected bike lanes, raised crosswalks, and other physical traffic control measures absolutely prevent this mayhem and a lot of everyday driver bullshit, too.
Note stop signs at intersections in question.
Huh?
That's like suggesting dog owners support the right of people to spread poised laced dog food in parks or parents being OK with people leaving spent needles in school playgrounds.
Not quite
John didn't suggest they were OK with it. He suggested that they harm themselves. Not quite the same thing.
Still just making people up to be mad at, huh?
Have you considered just shutting the computer off instead and doing something else? Hey, it's a nice day for a bike ride!
No Pogies Left!
Everyone took the bait.
Nice job all!
tripping over yourself trying to walk it back
non sequiturs aren’t “bait”
Ah, an old classic
Been a while since I'd seen this one
So ...
Are the people who want safer streets but excuse reckless driving side shows in the room with us right now, John?
LOL, nice try but you aren't helping yourself
You said something that was laughably wrong, were called on it quite effectively, and now are pretending it was just a troll. If that is so, then we can rightly conclude that everything you do here is just performative, but there's plenty of evidence that you actually believe a lot of the nonsense you spout. Therefore, it's safe to conclude you are only trying to save face. Either way, it's pathetic.
Parking violations
That was seriously the only law enforcement outcome here?
What the eff?
No arrests were reported.
I mean, how do you not arrest anyone doing this? Or at least impound all of the vehicles and make the guys (probably) all walk home.
Or we can just let lunatics drive like maniacs all over the roads. Sure, fine.
Yesh
According to the article, the police saw people doing illegal things and still didn't charge anyone.
Yeah, well...
...that would take work.
Getting tougher these days
More and more difficult to know if the person you are arresting is related to someone important, especially now that "potentially important" has become more diverse.
The event was specifically
The event was specifically staged to avoid Police vehicles reaching the location.
Streets were blocked off strategically to avoid arrests.
It's not like the Police arrived with any advance notice of what how many people were there and what exactly was going on.
Just imagine trying to arrest someone in a large crowd of people who are all there specifically for that event and then walking your detainee several blocks to your vehicle while bottles and fireworks are being aimed at you. What the Police needed for this situation was a riot squad.
Anywhere else but the Back Bay this would have probably been considered a riot. Oxford Dictionary defines "riot" as: a violent disturbance of the peace by a crowd. The peace of those redients was violently disturbed by that crowd and the drivers of the vehicles involved.
I considered that too.
However, when I lived in Egleston Sq. There were regular street parties and racing up and down Columbus in the wee hours. Occasionally eventually the police would be persuaded to show. Sometimes a whole brigade noisier than the partiers. I guess it depended on how many graveyard shift cops were on duty. When enough showed, I’m hoping someone was arrested. I was always too sleepy to keep looking out the window to confirm.
They don't need cars to make arrests.
The article says the officers made it to the scene on foot, and "Officers gave multiple verbal commands to vacate the area". They were there. Why didn't they arrest anyone?
Fine then
Don't arrest anyone. Block off the streets, call in the tow companies, and impound/seize all of the vehicles.
If someone comes to the tow lot to retrieve the vehicle, arrest them then. If they don't, then dispose of the vehicle properly. I'm guessing most of these aren't '02 Civics, and the perpetrators may not be keen on losing a $50,000 "investment" and will think twice about doing it again.
Plus it's a damn long walk back to Rhode Island or Maine that time of night.
Apparently they know what these vehicles are, and can probably find the video. Go impound the vehicles.
This reminds me ….
…. of that Marshall’s commercial a few years back when they opened the store that was on Boylston.
“What!!!!!! A Marshalls in the Back Bay!!!!!”
It actually started in Dedham
It actually started in Dedham/Westwood/Norwood and then they went up to the city.