re: Raking your leaves into the ditch

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No. Not an apples to apples comparison.

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Yes, it definitely is. Both are very detrimental to drainage systems, as I have personally witnessed. It's actually worse to put things into closed-conduit systems than it is to put them into open-channel systems.

The Hispanic gents are typically who I see blowing leaves and clippings into the street.

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They end up tucked in the gutter after a few cars pass by. Then the rain carries them into the drains.

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I live on a side street that doesn't have a ton of traffic, and I don't even think I have drains directly on my street (I could be wrong about that, but I don't recall any).

Bag your leaves, hillbilly.

I can speak to this. I live in the "country". A lot of people around here right their leaves into a ditch.

The people that rake them into the ditch and leave them are causing problems. They don't understand that the rate at which the leaves break down doesn't exceed the necessary threshold to prevent them from floating away and clogging up culverts.

This happens because those people see others rake leaves in the ditch but those others then burn them which is perfectly acceptable. It's actually the safest way to burn leaves because they're less likely to blow away sending burning embers everywhere and the bottom of the ditch is usually wet which can help prevent the burn pile from getting out of hand.

In short, do rake your leaves into the ditch and then promptly and thoroughly burn them. Don't even leave them for a day because of how much it rains here. If you don't plan on burning them at all or don't plan on burning them all the way through or don't plan on burning them that same day, then do not rake your leaves into the ditch.