I'd say that when you're wandering around with headphones and flip-flops the traffic is a much greater danger than criminals.

Flip-flops and denim are the only things we are banned from wearing at work and theres even a good reason for it in the case of flip-flops.

I once overtook a jogger. He was running barefoot. Down the middle of the road. At 6am. Next to a pavement.

Is there any outfit more likely to create a bad impression than trainers, tracksuit bottoms and a sweatshirt?

Standard wear where I work

Yeah, I actually make sure I'm very observant of what's happening on the roads when I'm out and about. I'm often bemused at people who just wander about in a world of their own, nowadays often entirely focussed on their wireless telephone but that's really just an optional extra to inattentiveness. Where footwear is concerned, I'm pretty much as clumsy whether wearing flip-flops or sturdy boots and perfectly capable of injuring myself whatever protection I'm supposedly afforded or not.


Now that's something I really wouldn't like to do. There's all sorts of unpleasantness I wouldn't want to tread in.

I can be inattentive without the aid of technology but living in London for 14 years meant I got a lot more careful around drivers. I like my sturdy and shiny (at least for now) new boots but when one of the major perils of your life is small children deciding its fun to jump up and down on your feet these things matter.

Wow, Londoners really are savages.

I would miss them, sure, but not enough to hang onto life

I also wanted to add, I feel "safety" is a relative thing. When I see news in countries like Sudan, Iran, and much of the Middle East, where I live is nothing compared to their daily lives there. How many saying "No" truly fear for their lives on a daily basis? Or maybe I'm reading too much into what "safe" means?

Does it matter if the sweatsuit is suede or velour?

No I don't fell particularly feel safe where I live. I'm not too far away from a nighclub which IIRC is the 2nd most violent in NSW, had a double stabbing just up the end of the street last year with one killed. Also had a drunk driver (with his 9 y.o. son in the front seat) demolish part of our concrete front fence earlier in the year they hit the wall so hard my bed jumped, swear the only thing that saved them was the air bags.

At least they shut down the caravan park that used to be just a block away, we had 2 murders there.

Clowns also make people float, they all float down here. Oh they also have bright lights and turn into giant spiders.

@AlBQuirky - Of course there will always be a place worse than where a person currently is. I′m just saying that for reasons I′m not at liberty to disclose, things feel much more threatening here now than ten years ago. Or even five years ago.

I'm also inclined to add that "here" is Oxford, which isn't quite as murdericious as Morse suggests, but on the other hand it really isn't quite as genteel either: the rather sophisticated and disconnected image of the Dreaming Spires and their interestingly academic murders is a world away from the actual Oxford with its rubbish shopping centre, terrible transport infrastructure, vast assortment of curry houses and the Mini factory. But mostly it's safe, just annoying.

I actually preferred living near Cambridge.

These are Welsh children. They must sense I'm English.

I live in a small isolated community in the middle of nowhere in the Everglades. The nearest town is 10 miles away. Half of the year most of the houses are empty when their owners return to Canada or yankee land and that leaves them open to vandalism by the local teens looking for some free booze and a place to party. That happens about every five years.


Other than that, not much happens around here. The biggest thing to be concerned about is not being eaten by an alligator in your back yard. For the zombie onslaught I have a Winchester model 1898 loaded with seven rounds of 4-ought buckshot to take care of that. There are backup guns, but I don't think much could get thought that.


I will say that things are different at my unattended 80 acre farm in Tennessee. The local meth heads have stolen everything there except the dirt.

If you're ten miles from any other human, you're a bit less likely to kill them than you would be if they were ten metres away. If you live in a village where everyone knows everyone, there's less likely to be random violence than in a city neighbourhood where half the residents have never even seen each other's faces.

I think that's certain small towns, mostly in southern Oregon. Portland (and the metro area) is doing well these days, though it was bad in the early to mid 90s, when everything was timber dependent and the industry was crashing. In contemporary Portland you're most likely to get in trouble for not drinking the right kind of fair trade coffee or .

Anyway, I'm a guy, so it's easier, but I've never lived in a place that I felt unsafe. Most of the trouble I've had was when I lived near a trendy neighborhood with a group of popular bars, and that was just having drunk people hit and run my parked car... seven times in about three years. First world problems.

Thanks, I've lived in a rough town before (not Jacksonville ) and I've spent a lot of time in the woods. My dad wasn't military but my grandfather and uncles were and their teachings just kinda became hand-me-down knowledge for the family. My dad instilled on me at an early age to be aware and mindful of who and what is around you. I often find myself in the most mundane situations and already picking out exits, weapons, hiding places and ambush points. Forming plans for things that I pray wont happen. It's a jungle out there and there are many a predator on the prowl.

Never, ever sit with your back to a door

Yep. I actually dont like sitting within view of doors.

That makes sense too

I'll chalk that up to inbreeding and complete absence of anything to do (aside from cousins and drugs), Tasmanian .

Is the word you're looking for "slum"? That is, a place where stuff is run down, the people are poor, and no politician will bother treading unless they're announcing a project the involves bulldozing the lot and building a load of exorbitantly expensive stuff on the land.

Yeah, everyone knows children belong in coal mines. They must have a decidedly primitive concept of childrearing if they keep the anklebiters around after they're big enough to walk. Completely ruins their chances of developing a good work ethic, physical strength, general work experience, and all the other benefits of a good decade of crawling around cramped tunnels breathing in constitution-building coal dust .

Oh, and I feel completely safe in this city. There is no part of Melbourne (population: ~4.5 million humans) that I wouldn't be happy to go to (barring laziness and other such factors ) during daylight/evening hours, and for the remainder it's mostly just a matter of an increased risk of being robbed, so I'll avoid 'em at three o'clock in the morning, but I wouldn't be overly worried if I had urgent business in Dandenong/Frankston/wherever. I would be 100% comfortable driving through any part of town at any time of day (I mean, traffic is a pain, but only a figurative one).

I should note that I'm male and 189cm tall, so things are less intimidating for me than, say, a friend of mine who's 140cm, 45kg (and a woman, as you probable assumed). However, I'm pretty sure it's still only nightime that she starts getting worried.

Cultural humor FTW!


It's been the cornerstone of my wife's (she is Filipina) and i's marriage for 26 years.

Sounds like East Austin.