I see it all the time in posts by users from America, about many different topics. Every time it comes up going home at night, or taking public transit at night, is considered dangerous. I lived in two different countries in the EU, and absolutely no one in either of them would be that worried about walking home at night. Is walking home at night, for example through a large park, really that dangerous?
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As a woman, there’s no place in the world where I’d feel safe walking home by myself at night, but that’s just me.
I’d be extremely cautious if I ever had to walk anywhere alone at night. I guess if I had to, I’d try to be on the phone with my boyfriend to ease my nerves.
As with all things, it very much depends where you are.
https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/safety/#
According to this, Americans feel less safe than Estonians but more safe than British if walking home alone at night. 16/41 where 41 is feeling least safe.
> In the United States, 78% of people say that they feel safe walking alone at night, more than the OECD average of 74%.
Parks in Indiana are dawn to dusk. They also are…you know, a lot of nature and generally do not have a lot of street lights. You won’t be able to see much in the middle of a forest at night and you are likely to injure yourself if you’re just aimlessly walking about.
The US is generally a safe country, but individual people will be best to judge their own circumstances.
Walking through Skid Row is probably not a good idea. Walking along Broadway Street in Nashville is probably fine.
Most of the country does not have frequent public transit, let alone frequent public transit in the third shift hours.
I am much more aware of my wallet when in Barcelona than I am anywhere in the US. The petty crimes that Europeans just kind of accept generally aren’t a big deal here.
The big safety thing here is crossing streets, watching out for potholes or damaged pieces of road and sidewalks, high speed limits, pretty much all auto related. I’m not saying these are third world country levels of infrastructure, but if a walker trips on one bad piece of sidewalk or your Uber driver nails a pothole at 3am, that may not be good especially if its late with few people around.
Not as dangerous as you’ve been told/led to believe.
I’ve lived in Europe and felt much less safe there than I ever did here.
It depends entirely on where you are. I feel perfectly safe walking through my neighborhood at night, but there are certainly neighborhoods in my city where I wouldn’t.
There are definitely places that are unpleasant and even worrying to walk at night. Most are fine. It comes down to familiarity.
>I lived in two different countries in the EU, and absolutely no one in either of them would be that worried about walking home at night.
[X]Doubt
I am a 63 year old man. I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. As an adult, I have lived in metro Boston, Baltimore City, and suburban Rhode Island. I have walked home at night many times without ever being mugged or otherwise assaulted. Your mileage may vary.
When I was in my late teens (2002) I almost got mugged at gunpoint walking home from work off the bus, about three blocks from home in northeast Philadelphia.
Take that as you will.
I feel safe walking around my sleepy neighborhood at night. But there isn’t anywhere to walk home *from*.
I’d have to live in a more urban neighborhood to have anything within walking distance and then it would feel more dangerous.
I don’t feel safe walking at night but it’s because there are no sidewalks where I live and I don’t trust drivers to be aware of pedestrians. Crime-wise I live in a big city and don’t worry about it.
No one huh? Not a single crime victim in either country, where was this?
My neighborhood has inconsistent lighting, it’s heavily forested, there are lots of winding roads and hills, and no sidewalks so you have to walk in the road and you could get hit by a car. It hasn’t happened to me yet but I still worry about it.
Where I live, not at all. Where I work, not a good neighborhood. Some people have to park blocks away from the building, and we try to get any women to move their cars closer before it gets dark.
I’ll avoid walking at night somewhere unfamiliar or that I know is likely to be high risk, like a busy road without a sidewalk or main street when the bars close.
Of the two, the busy road is far and away the more threatening. I’m reluctant to walk there in broad daylight.
But someplace I know, and know to be safe? Sure. Large city parks can fall into the safe *or* the dangerous category.
>Every time it comes up going home at night, or taking public transit at night, is considered dangerous.
I doubt people make a big fuss about getting home safely.
I walk my dogs at night in my neighborhood. I wouldn’t do the same if I lived in certain parts of South Dallas.
OP sounds like he’s male and has lived a very sheltered life.
I think it 100% depends on where you are.
I’m just outside of NYC. There are areas of the city I absolutely will not be out at night in. I’m also cautious on public transit very late.
But in my neighborhood, I’m always out at night, whether it’s running to the corner store to grab candy, or just going for a walk.
It really depends on what the plot of the movie is.
Anyway, it really depends on the area and the intoxication level. Drunk people can get into fights in their stupor. Sometimes people on hallucinogens well yell and threaten you from a distance away but I’ve never seen them actually become violent.
As far as muggings – I honestly have only heard of it happening in large parking lots. I’m sure Bruce and Marth Wayne style muggings on the street were common in the past before sprawl but anecdotally, they seem to be rare or nonexistent.
Speaking of anecdotes, I’ve been involved in a single fistfight in my adult life. It was when I was new to Germany and walking to a store. I don’t know the guy’s intentions; he emerged from trees and didn’t say a word despite me speaking to him for several seconds as he approached. I panicked and threw some punches to knock him out and I ran to get out of the area. Maybe I overreacted; I will never know. But at the moment I was not going to find out.
I’ve never had a similar experience in the US. Some people have. But it’s location dependent. People with enemies will experience danger at night.
We have had a freakish number of late-night hit and run accidents on pedestrians lately. My city doesn’t have enough sidewalks, nor enough street lights to go with them. That’s why I wouldn’t consider it safe. In terms of violence or animal attacks, that’s a miniscule concern for me.
OP, are you male? Because that makes a difference.
First, note that with all news, in America, “if it bleeds, it leads.” Meaning what you hear in the news and what gets reported are the exceptions, the extraordinary, rather than the commonplace: a child walking home in the middle of the night that is struck by a car is so rare and so horrific, it gets reported everywhere. But if children were dying by the boatload, no-one would report it anymore. (Sad, but true.)
Second, also note that with America, it’s extremely dependent upon where you are, and the sort of dangers you may face as a result. For example, walking around my neighborhood in the middle of the night—as a semi-rural area without sidewalks, and the major hazard are cars zipping along without drivers paying attention. In parts of Alaska, it’s the wildlife you have to watch out for, which is why in parts of Alaska people generally are armed. There are large swaths of Los Angeles, on the other hand, where it’s perfectly safe to be out for a walk in the middle of the night—though where I used to live in Glendale, the thing to watch out for were coyotes.
But it’s the same as with the European Union: while in southern Spain I (a 250 lb older male) was nearly mugged; petty crime in Spain is significantly higher than nearly anywhere in the United States. Property crimes are also much higher, as are personal assaults. One time in London (yes, no longer in the EU, but even so…), I found myself on the wrong street between two groups of footballer fans who looked hell-bent on ‘tuning each other up’; nothing like ducking down a side street to avoid a violent riot to give yourself a bit of an adrenaline rush. And I certainly wouldn’t be wanting to hang around Paris during any of the current protests. On the other hand, if there is a bad place in Iceland, I haven’t found it yet, and I certainly would feel as safe walking the streets of Amsterdam as I would walking the streets of Raleigh.
I think the real problem—as my parents learned when they had their rental car broken into and their stuff stolen while on vacation in Ireland—is that being unfamiliar with an area we can’t recognize if an area is “dangerous” or “quaint.” (The police berated my parents for parking in a “dangerous” area, but honestly, how as an American are we supposed to know what’s not just “quaint?”)
And I suspect OP is doing this without realizing it: feeling safe because they know the areas where they shouldn’t go in the middle of the night, and just discounting that as just part of life in the big city.
But statistically speaking, which is the only way questions like this can be answered, the United States is safer, generally speaking, than the European Union, in terms of petty crimes, assaults, battery, and sexual assault. In general, on average, if you are dropped in a random place in the United States, you are safer from your fellow humans than you are if you were randomly dropped somewhere in Europe.
And your major concerns in the United States are idiot drivers not paying attention, and wildlife who may think you’d make a crunchy snack. (And while the dangerous wildlife is extremely rare, we’re talking about a very rare event in the first place—at which point, bears and coyotes and rattle snakes become a statistically viable issue to think about.)
Uh…are you sure NO ONE in these European countries would be worried about walking alone at night?
Are you male or female, OP?
If male, I suggest asking some women how they feel about walking home at night alone in your country. I bet you’ll find they don’t feel safe either.
In NYC, walking home or taking transit at night is totally normal and safe outside of one or two rougher areas (and even then you’ll be fine, you just won’t enjoy it and wish you’d taken a cab). Elsewhere, it depends.
There are way too many parameters here. It is very much like saying, “Is it safe to walk home at night in Europe?”