Oakland is and has been a “bad area” for many years. It’s not a secret. If you are a middle-class, law biding person, you’re not going to live or visit there. The nearest “big city” to where I live is Philadelphia, and while it has many interesting things to see, and some restaurants that I love, it also has many “bad areas”. I stay out of those areas, thus, no problem.
Don’t the people who do live there deserve to be safe in their own neighborboods?
1 Like
This discussion happens to involve cars, but it looks like it’s more about self defense and crime control to me.
Back in he 70’s I used to drive my bosses big white Cadillac down by the stock yards in Chicago for pickup of printings. Driving instructions.
If you are at a red light leave enough space in front to bail out and run the light if you need.
Do not stop for anyone that looks like they need help.
Do not look anybody in the eye.
If you drove through Minneapolis late at night you also were aware and took precautions. My dad used to keep a bat under the seat and of course the doors always locked when the night shift ended at 1am. A friend of the family reported driving through a red light on Washington Ave. with a guy hanging onto his door handle. Back when Fords had that old style handle grip. Yeah gotta be aware of your surroundings. They didn’t have guns then though.
I was in n mpls few weeks ago. Near a sketchy area. But it was 2pm. Yesterday was stuck behind stalled alfa. Couldn’t back up. Made it out ok.
Alfas should come with this bumper sticker:
1 Like
The view of Oakland presented above maybe is a little exaggerated toward the negative. You think? … lol … Not that long ago I had a good friend who lived in one of the better areas of Oakland, but it was still in the middle of Oakland. I visited hundreds of times, never had any problem. Not once. Oakland has excellent restaurants & public transportation, lots of walking and hiking areas. If I was going on a ski trip to Colorado I’d stay at their house in Oakland, then in the morning catch BART (sort of like a subway) to the Oakland airport, to fly to Aspen. Vail, etc. I always wondered what the folks on the subway thought when they saw me carrying skiis, poles, and ski-boots??? … lol … Suggest to consider the whole of the Oakland experience, not just the negative parts.
I think one of frequent poster here lives in Oakland, maybe they’ll chime in.
I should add however that there was another similar incident yesterday, this time in Berkeley, neighboring Oakland. Nobody injured apparently, thank goodness.
Well a little off topic but I read today that the 57 community colleges in Minnesota offering law enforcement degrees for the certificate, Have been instructed to wipe any mention of law enforcement. Web sites, course material and so on. The explanation is that some people are triggered by the term. So coming to a theater near you. In the meantime recruiting is way below requirements.
Police often get blamed for problems not of their own making. The huge traffic fines here in Calif aren’t b/c the police like to issue $500 tickets for an illegal right hand turn. But the folks who get those $500 tickets for relatively minor offenses focus their antipathy on the police who wrote them up, rather than on the politicians who mis-use the citizen’s need to drive a car as a way to fund their retirement.
By way of analysis, the $500 illegal right hand turn breaks down appx as a $75 fine for the actual offense, and $425 in various state and local gov’t fees.