This story hits close to home. There was another shooting on the streets of Los Angeles today. When I heard the initial report on the radio, it was thought to be another freeway shooting, but it wasn’t. It happened near a freeway onramp, on a block that I travel on every day:

A motorist was killed and another was wounded in what police suspect was a shooting from one car to another in downtown Los Angeles this afternoon as rush hour started.

The man who died was struck in the head and died at a hospital, said Officer April Harding, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Police Department. The other victim, who was shot in the arm, also was taken to a hospital and was expected to survive.

Police said the victims were struck while driving on Bixel Street between 7th and 8th streets. The car then continued on Bixel to an onramp to the southbound Harbor Freeway, where it came to rest.

“It didn’t happen on the freeway,” said LAPD Lt. Paul Vernon, the department’s spokesman.

The shooting was reported about 3:30 p.m., Harding said. Two other people in the vehicle that was fired upon were unharmed.

LAPD investigators were attempting to determine where the shots originated.

I travel on Bixel Street between 7th and 8th streets every afternoon, after picking up my children from their day care. It is a downhill block at which cars line up to get on the onramp to the southbound Harbor Freeway. I have even written about this particular block before, and the street vendors and beggars who frequent the block due to the rush hour line-up of cars.

It won’t surprise me if this turns out to have been a road-rage incident. The left and center lanes of traffic proceed straight through a traffic light and onto the freeway onramp. These two lanes pile up with cars, and the backup extends for two blocks. Meanwhile, the right lane is (in theory) a right-turn-only lane onto westbound 8th Street, and is always clear of traffic. For this reason, unscrupulous drivers invariably use the right lane to cheat, nosing into the center lane at the last moment, at or before the onramp. This behavior often angers the law-abiding drivers in the center lane, and can lead to arguments. (For this reason, I always stay in the left lane.)

I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that such an argument precipitated this shooting. Lending credence to the theory is the fact that, although the story doesn’t explicitly say so, it is written in a way that suggests that the driver was the one who was killed (“The car then continued on Bixel to an onramp to the southbound Harbor Freeway, where it came to rest.“). [UPDATE: Apparently this is wrong; both of the people who were shot, including the person who died, were also passengers.]

We don’t know what caused the shooting, but this is good advice regardless: if you are someone who gets upset at others on the road, don’t. Let it go. I am talking to myself here as well. It isn’t worth it.