When I lived in an urban area I was far more concerned with getting mugged or purse snacked than getting raped especially in the winter when rare in the person who would lie in wait outside in zero degree weather. I think if you are jumped you may not have your wits about you or the flexibility to use your hands to grab for something, push some button. I’ always was told to stomp on the instep if my feet were free.
To me, the idea would be to have the item in hand, even finger on the button, in the example of a personal alarm system. That seems easier and more likely to be effective than hoping to connect with someone’s instep.
A simple purse snatching, while scary and a nuisance, would be the least of my concerns as it is all replaceable.
Maybe on a short walk into a parking lot or something, but on a long walk I guess I would not feel like I had a confident stride if I was holding something that had to be pushed. I did have my building keys in my hand (and not in my purse) every time when I was out an about alone. Nowadays many people don’t even have car or building keys…everything is swipe or button push so the key is no longer a convenient wounding device.
Had a peer who had safety training decades ago at his urban university in a high crime rate neighborhood. He was told to have a decoy wallet with a $20 bill in it and if approached, throw the designated wallet in one direction while running in the opposite direction.The idea was to avoid a physical confrontation, while not leaving thief angry at an empty wallet. Don’t know what law enforcement would say about that idea today. How to prepare really depends on both the most likely type of danger or crime one is likely to face and what the individual involved is actually able to do.
Spring blade knife, less than 4 inches. Mine is 3.75 and half serated. Also has a metal tip on one end for breaking windows. Pretty heavy. Check local laws obviously
^Why does this post make me think of West Side Story? 
@travelnut So is someone supposed to carry two wallets around with them? Honestly, if the thief is just looking for a wallet, I’d recommend willingly handing one over. Who carries much cash these days, and if so, is it worth bodily harm? Credit cards, IDs, wallets can be replaced.
Somewhat related, early in my career I work in a street level office location that, although it wasn’t a bank branch, could have been confused with a bank branch. We had a dummy drawer which we filled with a decent amount of cash every morning and locked away at night. It’s only propose was for a scenario in which if some robber mistook us for a bank, we’d have something to give to him so he wouldn’t get violent. Life matters above all else.
I have experience with travelling through marginal areas, I worked at night downtown NYC and commuted to the Northeast Bronx on a subway line that ran right through the South Bronx, and this was at the height of the crack based crime epidemic in NYC, where there were 2500 murders a year,and robberies and violent crimes were at all time highs.
With pepper spray, besides the fact that that and things like tear gas may be illegal, you also have to understand that those depend on getting it right in the guys face, and to do that may not be as easy as it looks on tv. It is much like images on tv with defending yourself with a gun, when you get into those kinds of situations you don’t have much time to react, and if you hesitate, you are in trouble, may be likely they use it on you. If you plan of using pepper spray or the like, I recommend practicing tactics with it, see how hard/easy it is to pull out. Put a target on a wall representing someone’s face, and try this, turn your back to the wall, walk a couple of steps, and quickly turn around and fire the pepper spray, no taking time to aim…and see how often you hit the target (I recommend using something less volatile then pepper spray, maybe a squirt bottle). Practice it, be walking, then act like you sense someone behind you, turn, and spray…see how easy or hard it is. It is very easy to talk about using stuff to defend yourself, but odds are against someone who is untrained successfully warding off attack, as one poster said, it comes too fast most of the time. Self defense classes are designed to get you to the point that where if you are attacked, you react quickly and in the right way, it is an analogy to military basic training in that sense, that it becomes muscle memory.
By all means if it is legal, look into pepper spray or the like, if it is legal then give it a shot, but make sure to practice with a surrogate. One of the advantages of having things like pepper spray is it can give someone confidence, rather than walking around looking scared, it can mean someone feels less scared and projects that.
But there is better ways IMO to protect yourself, @sue and others have made good suggestions, here is my quick bucket list:
1)If you are routinely walking throught a bad area or at night, keep to well lit streets and try to go on routes where there are people present. If riding public transportation, stay near the driver or conductor (on a train), on the station try and follow other people leaving the train. Other people being around is a detterrent, not to mention they may know where trouble is or isn’t in the neighborhood.
2)Don’t wear anything flashy, and even if it is something like costume Jewelry, don’t wear it. Thieves are looking for the quick take, and even if that necklace is gold over sterline QVC special, don’t wear it. If travelling through bad areas, keep a minimal number of things in your wallet, have your driver’s license in its own little case, not in the wallet, and have only credit or bank cards you use regularly. Have some cash in it, so if robbed the thief will get something.
Likewise, if you can dress down (college students usually do that anyway). Thieves are attracted like moths to a light, and while it is not perfect, if you look like you don’t have much, they are less likely to bother you IME
3)Others are right, walk confidently, even if you are scared, the predators out there sense fear and like a dog, will chase it. Someone who is walking confidently sends out vibes that tell the would be thieves you aren’t worth it, they want easy pickings. Women have it a lot harder than men, it was a lot easier for me as someone who was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, am somewhat tall and muscular, who probably had bloodhsot eyes, was irritated from work, and otherwise looked half crazy, to deter someone than a young, petite woman would…and in my case, I looked like I probably was, probably had 5 bucks in my pocket:).
4)Don’t look people directly in the eye, some jackwads out there will see that as a challenge, walk, looking ahead, and don’t make eye contact.
5)Know the route you will be walking and stick with it, because that lends itself to the other trick, being aware. It is really easy at night, after a long day, to have on the headphones and listening to music, or worse walking and texting, but you don’t want to do that. When you get to know the route, you also get to know what is and isn’t right, what should be there, and isn’t. You start learning people who don’t look right, and avoid them, if you practice situational awareness, if you see people crossing the street to walk, they likely have seen something (unless they are crossing the street to come towards you). You see someone hanging out on the street ahead of you, you may want to cross over to the other side. If you are walking on the sidewalk and there is suddenly a big, dark gap between buildings, you may want to walk in the street under the streetlights, as far from that opening as possible.
It means being aware constantly, you can’t assume anything and it means being on guard. My wife commented on that, that when we are walking in the city, for example, that at times I’ll stifffen up and she doesn’t see why, and I’ll point out something that doesn’t look right, whether it is a bunch of young kids hanging out who are acting all aggressively and the like, or something else that triggers a 6th sense, a couple of times my instincts were right and someone else got their purse snatched or their laptop ripped off right near where we were.
There are a lot of sites out there about protecting yourself, about self defense techniques, being aware and so forth, and IME avoiding a problem is going to be a ton better than trying to fight off an attacker. Doesn’t mean horns or whistles or pepper spray are necessarily not going to work, but rather that they likely will not work as well as people assume. Blowing a whistle may deter some would be thieves or attackers, but in a lot of places you can blow the whistle until the cows come home and people won’t respond, and the thieves know that, in a better area they might.
I disagree with@ musicprnt 's advice to travel the same route. Have at least a few alternatives and vary them. The professionals watch people and note patterns. If you always emerge from the same subway station at almost the same time and walk the same path, they will lie in wait. Moreover, if you are traveling during off hours use the same exit as the greatest number of people.Also do not announce out loud which station you will get off.
I live in Brooklyn in a neighborhood that I have never found to be dangerous although others have thought so. My house is one long block and 4 short blocks from the subway and there are many ways to navigate. Late at night, it’s worth walking the long block on the wide, well-lit blocks that have bus routes rather than the others which are narrower, darker, and less traveled. So it really depends.
My opinion (and personal experience, having lived in some very sketchy areas of the world at times) is your brain is your best weapon. If a situation doesn’t feel right, listen to your brain and don’t walk that way, or get off the bus, or whatever it is that your brain is trying to warn you about.
The Krav Maga teachers will tell you that any item you hold can (and will) most likely be used against you unless you use it so much that it’s a part of your muscle memory and able to function in panic situations where your higher thinking centers are shut down. After your brain, your fingers for gouging, your teeth for biting, and your feet for kicking and stomping are your best weapons.
I can also tell you from personal experience that I can’t make any sounds when I’m terrified. So those old movies with the woman screaming dramatically-yeah, no that doesn’t happen for a lot of people when they’re super scared.
“So those old movies with the woman screaming dramatically-yeah, no that doesn’t happen for a lot of people when they’re super scared.”
Good point, @MotherOfDragons . And just as an aside, the reason many rape victims respond the way they do. It’s not fair/realistic for people to say, “Why didn’t she scream or fight back?”
@jonri-
What you say is true, but keep in mind that most crimes are not professional criminals staking out someone, most crimes are crimes of opportunity, rather than someone looking for a specific target. A junkie looking to mug someone to score, a kid looking to get cred with a street gang, a lot of crime is spur of the moment, they see someone promising, and take them out. Professional criminals do stake people out, but they tend to operate in better areas, for the obvious reasons that they tend to have better off people. The person coming home at 2am on the subway and getting off in the South Bronx is not likely to have much on them, so a pro wouldn’t be staking that out, they would be in areas like Park Avenue or 5th avenue or the wall street area or areas of Brooklyn that have gentrified and so forth.
That doesn’t mean you do the same thing necessarily, but if you are taking routes you don’t know well to get home, or aren’t well lighted or have other places that make it easier to rob someone, it would be better to take that main street every time that is well lighted and has people IME.
@doschicos:
The problem is the people judging a rape victim or a crime victim likely has never been put in that kind of position, and they believe the BS they see on tv and in movies, of the heroic woman fighting off her rapist, or the guy who with his hands and a stick beats off a robber, and a lot of that is about as realistic as a Rambo movie. The see this, nod their heads and say “yeah, that is what you do”…what they don’t understand is when you are in that position, you aren’t operating normally, adrenaline is pumping, you are scared *******, fight or flight is trying to make a decision and you are in the grip of fear, which often paralyzes people. One thing where movies are accurate, where in a monster moive or alien movie someone tries to talk and can’t, that happens. It is why the military spends so much team getting things to be muscle memory, it is why cops are trained in handling tense situations, panic makes all those thoughts go out the window.
A friend of mine hikes alone all the time. When her boss heard this, he gave her a taser and insisted she bring it with her. She did even though she thought it was pretty silly. One day coming down a trail, she encountered a mother black bear with two cubs. She tried to talk soothingly and back away slowly, but the bear kept approaching and growling. Thinking she was quite likely to die either way, she got the taser out and shot the bear. The bear screamed and ran away. Friend is alive.
I don’t know how big tasers are or if they’re legal everywhere, but that’s what I’d want to get if I regularly had to walk through potentially dangerous areas.