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Los Angeles is one of the most popular destinations in the USA with over 50 million people that visit this region annually but there’s many of you that tell me you will never come to Los Angeles why is that well there’s many people that just don’t feel safe coming to La why why don’t people feel safe coming here well la in addition to being known for the beaches and for Hollywood it’s also known for high-speed chases gang violence rampant homelessness and now flash mob robberies and today I’m in
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Venice Beach shooting this video to get down to is La actually safe to visit as a tourist or not now this isn’t a video designed to tell you to stay away from Los Angeles or some fear-mongering but in 2023 there are definitely some things that you need to know if you’re coming to La so that you’re safe and so I’m going to go through seven of the key areas that make people not feel safe when they come to La I’m also going to share with you some of the safest neighborhoods in Los Angeles and some of
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the least safe neighborhoods in Los Angeles La is really a city of extreme opposites where you can have really beautiful secure neighborhoods like Beverly Hills and just a few blocks away you can have neighborhoods where crime Thrive and places you definitely don’t want to go or stumble into so the first unsafe thing you’re going to want to be aware of in Los Angeles are high-speed car chases Los Angeles is the car chase capital of the world because if there’s a car chase going on chances are it’s
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going to be on television how many car chases does Los Angeles have in a year over a thousand car chases in a typical year summer fast summer slow like the famous one where O.J Simpson was fleeing the police in his white Bronco so if you’re standing around on the streets in La be careful because a hundred of these car chases a year injure innocent bystanders so keep your wits about you when you’re standing on the street corner maybe you don’t stand right in the corner when you’re waiting for a
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traffic light maybe stand back a few feet and if you’re in your car and somebody’s driving crazy past you just go ahead and let them pass because you never know they might be followed by about 40 police cars right after them which leads me to number two road rage Los Angeles is also the number one city in the USA for road rage way to go la every year the Los Angeles police department has reports over 800 cases of road rage and these aren’t just like aggressive driving like tailgating and
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Horn Hawking in fact one-third of these road rage incidents often involve gun and so if somebody’s uh you know being really aggressive to you on the highway on the roads the thing you should remember is to resist the urge to get back at them you know
don’t flip them the bird
Giving someone the (middle) finger, also known as flipping the bird[1] or flipping someone off,[1] is an obscene hand gesture.
don’t shoot them a dirty look save it for later because that’ll be better for you later just drive on or maybe even better drive away the third area to be aware of in Los Angeles is illegal street takeovers at the Los
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Angeles Police Department had over 5 000 calls for Street takeovers last year what’s a street take over well it’s when some cars get together and take over an intersection they start doing donuts or tricks in it and they’ve got other people to block the intersection so no cars can go through it so that they can do their fun time show and sometime these things can turn deadly because the cars get out of control or people get into fights and so if you come up on an intersection and you see like smoke and
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things like that and lots of cars nobody’s moving you’ll probably want to figure out how you turn around the other way to avoid this is that these Street takeovers they typically happen late at night when traffic is at its lightest and so you know if you’re hanging out in La go back to your hotel by 10 pm because my mom said nothing good happens after 10 pm at night anyway the 4 fourth area you want to be aware of are car break-ins last year 32 000 car break-ins were reported in Los Angeles these are
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people breaking in the cars to steal valuables so if you have valuables with you don’t leave them in your car and if you don’t want to get your car broken into avoid downtown and Hollywood those are the two areas with the highest car break-ins and the time of year that their highest is in December Christmas time when everybody has Christmas gifts in their car my Pro tip for you is if you’re looking for a safe place to park I really like to use the spot Hero app on my phone you can actually then park
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at many hotel valets hotel valet parking in their underground gated lot pretty good because not a lot of random people are wandering around Hotel parking garages that are only serviced by valets and if you use the spot Hero app chances are you’ll find much cheaper rates than if you just rolled up at the gate by the way there was a fly on my leg shoo fly don’t bother me so you might be thinking well Chris all these issues you’re talking about there with cars what if I just don’t rent a car and take public
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transit that brings us to number five which is public transit crimes there’s a lot of crimes that occur on public transit in Los Angeles the most common issue on public transit are actually what they call sleepers and these are people who they’re on the train or the bus they get high from drugs and then they pass out it’s actually been such a big issue they don’t just pass out in the first three months of 2023 22 people died on public transit in Los Angeles I was reading an interview with a train
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operator Anonymous in LA in the LA times and he was saying since covid there’s no business people riding the trains anymore they don’t even see tourists going to Universal Studios the only people riding public transit in La now are the people who don’t have a choice the homeless and the drug users there’s also a number of reports of like assaults and robberies on public transit in la la is trying to deploy more police but without a lot of Los Angeles coming back to ride public transit ever since
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covid if Los Angeles have a choice they’re taking their car and they’re not riding public transit and so for right now I’d recommend you avoid the public transit in La you rent a car you take ride shares something like Uber or Lyft if you’re in an area like Venice Beach or Santa Monica you know rent a bike and bike that around if you do have to ride the public transit you know definitely keep your wits about you and probably that’s another one you don’t want to be doing late at night the sixth area that
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plagues Los Angeles is store theft and not just petty theft from souvenir stores but in 2023 we’ve seen dozens of flash mobs 10 to 40 people that run in and overwhelm a store to steal high value items like jewelry and purses they’ve targeted Nordstrom’s Gucci Yves Saint Laurent and now you might be thinking Chris okay I I don’t go to any of those high-end stores when I’m on vacation they’ve even targeted low-end stores like Nordstrom Rack so if you find yourself in a store and you see 10
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the 40 thugs coming in to you know ransack the store your best bet is just to keep your distance and be a good witness for when the police arrive that is unless you’re Captain America and you can take out 40 thugs in one blow number seven let’s talk about the elephant in the room or the Elephant at the beach or the elephant in the city which is the homeless unhoused population the people who don’t live in their house but choose to live out on the streets and in 2023 the number of homeless people in Los
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Angeles is estimated to be at 46 000. it’s a big deal it’s a big issue though I will say it’s actually getting better this is when we’re on the news you hear it’s worse and worse but you know standing where I am right now in Venice Beach When I Was Here 18 months ago I couldn’t stand here because this whole area along the boardwalk was full of tents you’re still going to see lots of tents lots of RVs around La but they’ve definitely cleaned up the major tourist areas the worst areas for homelessness
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one is definitely downtown Los Angeles in particular in this neighborhood called Skid Row in this 50 block area of downtown Los Angeles 15 000 homeless people live on the street if you’re trying to avoid it and you’re in downtown L.A Skid Row is bordered by Third Street to the North 7th Street to the South Alameda street to the East and Main Street to the West do not walk through skid row and if you’re gonna stay in a hotel in downtown Los Angeles lots of it can get really sketchy at
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night I really recommend the area near LA Live or the LA Convention Center three more neighborhoods you’ll probably want to avoid when you come to Los Angeles you’ll want to avoid staying in Hollywood Hollywood has a lot of homelessness and a lot of crime and it tends to run both ways where homelessness and crime run together I’m not saying the homeless people caused the crime but the areas where the city lets the homeless stay often tend to be the crime infested neighborhoods if you
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do want to stay near Hollywood take a look at West Hollywood West Hollywood actually quite nice Venice Beach where I am right now I don’t recommend people stay in Venice Beach for hotels it gets really sketchy here at night and although they’ve cleaned up some of it it’s not that great consider staying in neighboring Santa Monica just down that way or Marina delway just down that way also the Westchester neighborhood which is the neighborhood right around Los Angeles International Airport there are
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some pretty good hotels on Century Boulevard but you’re just going to want to go in that hotel sleep for the night and go out the next day you’re not really going to walk around the Westchester neighborhood to any it’s not gonna be saying to yourself okay Chris you’ve told me where not to stay where should I stay where are the safe neighborhoods in Los Angeles well they are generally the neighborhoods that are west of the interstate 405 and north of the interstate 10. Beverly Hills
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Glendale Pasadena Playa del Rey if you’re near Venice Beach is an area that’s home to a ton of tech companies and there’s a ton of security guards there even in the children’s playgrounds if you’re looking for beaches I really like Manhattan Beach and if you want the best safest most family-friendly beaches head down to Orange County check out Newport Beach or Laguna Beach two of my favorites if you want the safest place in the whole Italy region then you know go to Disneyland the happiest place on
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Earth because you’ll be going uh through security with bag checks and all those things and Disneyland is pretty safe actually you know what you’ll find in LA and uh my wife and I often say this when we come up here is that the best places are often the the private places the places that have private security tend to be the nicest and the safest anytime you end up in a bit of a public space like Venice you know things can get a little sketchy now one of the things I love about coming to Venice Beach is all
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the street musicians here and if you’re wondering where this musical company comes from it comes from Eric gray right here and as I was shooting a scene he said hey do you want to hear a Local’s perspective on whether La is safe absolutely so let’s hear from Eric yeah la is safe all you got to do is mind your business just don’t get involved in stream things that you’re not supposed to be involved in you know if you want to smoke something go to a legalized smoke shop if you want to
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drink something go into a nice little bar or something like that but chill out in the most areas where there there’s there’s the tourist areas and stuff like that like Venice Beach is a cool place everybody’s out here there’s certain parts of LA that you might not want to be at but in the tourist area here Hollywood Venice Beach Manhattan Beach all these areas you’re good you’re good Eric thank you very much if you want to check out more from Eric you can check them out on Facebook Instagram I’ll link
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all of his socials in the description of this video but that’s just my opinion to Eric’s opinion what do you think is La do you think it’s safe is it on your go list or is it on your no-go list I’d love to hear it well Phillips floors as usual I won’t say goodbye because I’m gonna see you in some of my videos you can check out my La travel tips video right here or my guide all about Venice Beach where I’ve been wandering around see if this is an area for you actually
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more people come to Venice Beach every year than Disneyland and so I think it’s a pretty cool neighborhood I like to stop in here oftentimes when I’m up in LA