I was born in the mid 50's and grew up in Southern California (San Diego and Glendale). I also lived in San Francisco, Berkeley and El Paso, as well as in the Mexican border towns of Tijuana and Cd. Juárez, before moving to Europe in 1990. I was car-free for all but a couple of years of my life in those cities, and I relied on public transit to get around. Never, not once, did I ever feel threatened. I never witnessed any violence or heard anyone being threatened, this in spite of the fact that I worked as a door-to-door salesman and tended to work in ethnic neighborhoods like Barrio Logan, Logan Heights, the Mission District, and so on. There were some colorful characters who'd get on from time to time, an occasional drunkard, but so what? I usually kept my nose in my newspaper or paperback.

I just wonder how it is that so many of you have had such negative experiences. Have things changed all that much since I left the States or was I just lucky? I believe violent crime has actually dropped.

I'd also like to know if public buses being the domain of weirdos and violent criminals is strictly an American phenomenon or if this extends to other countries. I've never run across this in Mexico, Central America or Europe.