Originally Posted by
Roody
Yeah, I once outrode a guy trying to jack my bike at night. I bragged about it for a while because the guy was about 30 years younger than me, but nowhere near as fast! Sometimes I mentally rehearse how I would get away from somebody in a car--hop a curb, cut through a vacant lot, wrong way on a one-way, and so forth. Generally I feel safer than I did 10 or 20 years ago, since the street crime rates have gone down a lot most places.
Back when our national murder and violent crime rates were much higher, I was young enough to still be immortal, so I was unconcerned. My city has seen a six-fold increase in homicides over the past four years and our bike paths have been taken over by thugs. I miss being young enough to not be bothered by these things.
On the bright side, the thug who tried to mug my son and then a few weeks later attempted to bike-jack my wife and me on the bike path a block from our home just got arrested for two counts of armed robbery. I guess it's kind of pathetic that that's what I call good news these days, but it is. My city has lost 30% of its walkers, 43% of its cyclists and 50% of its bus riders according to the US Census American Community Survey, so good news on the cycling front is hard to come by.