Be Careful Out There!

[Unventor]

21 hours ago, travsformation said:

But this was 15 years ago...not sure how I'd react now

You never know until it happens. 

I have been mugged once, when living in the UK. 2 girls and 2 men working together. Just the second before one of the men hit me to the ground from behind. The 2 girls acted as they stopped the fight and as the other man lifted me up they lifted my wallet too. 

Took me 4 months to get my drivers license back. All that for 15£.

But when I worked in the Danish Post Office picking up mail from small post office department, I arrive just 3 min after they had been rubbed at gun point. 6 month later it happen again. The two elderly women that worked they never recovered and after long time on sickleave they retired. 

I am normally a very quiet guy and would rather leave than getting into a fight. But deep down I also know, that I will not end up as a victim... I am not sure I would be able to control my anger at that point. 

But this is a different culture and country compared to the US. 

Edited March 9, 2020 by Unventor

[tenofnine]

This is all a big relief to hear! Judging by such a large group mugging him and the time they did it....for sure they had rap sheets and were in the system. Really dumb in broad daylight to pull something like that with such a large group. They knew no one would try and help but it caught up to them thankfully.

There is a bike cop that comes to my local diner and he asks me about my wheel every so often, seems actually interested in getting one. It just made me imagine cops on these things flying after perps and jumping off to tackle them; maybe they even have little red/blue lights on their shoulders with sirens haha. 

[mike_bike_kite]

London is also getting quite dangerous for some these days. A few years ago I used to ride large engined scooters and these became a prime target for gangs of youths who rode around on stolen scooters. It used to be that scooters were stolen while parked but then they took to surrounding you at traffic lights. I'm a fairly big guy, well built and certainly don't look like a push over but I still got surrounded on two occasions at the lights and I found it was making my evening commutes fairly stressful when you had to keep an eye on your mirrors all the time. In the end I swapped back to motorcycles. The knife attacks that occur here in London tend to be one teenage drug gang against another so the general public isn't much affected by this stuff but they're still very common. There was a kid killed on a bus just a mile from my house yesterday and a shooting in my local park just a few days ago. Even the terror attack that resulted in a guy getting shot by the police last month is only a short walk from my home. I certainly don't feel worried that I'll get mugged for my wheel, it's too weird a form of transport for that and, anyway, the local police are far more likely to take it off you. Hey ho.

 

[Tazarinho]

12 hours ago, tenofnine said:

It just made me imagine cops on these things

It also crossed my mind, there are places with Police Officers on Segways, bicycles or horses, so why not EUC's!

[Meserias]

search project42 on YouTube...

[LanghamP]

6 hours ago, mike_bike_kite said:

London is also getting quite dangerous for some these days. A few years ago I used to ride large engined scooters and these became a prime target for gangs of youths who rode around on stolen scooters. It used to be that scooters were stolen while parked but then they took to surrounding you at traffic lights. I'm a fairly big guy, well built and certainly don't look like a push over but I still got surrounded on two occasions at the lights and I found it was making my evening commutes fairly stressful

For most of human existence that "twitchy always-on-the-lookout" demeanor is normal. I'd say being surrounded by twitchy savages versus being able to share a sidewalk without being clobbered is the difference between savagery and civilization.

Some years after living in St Louis taking public transportation and bicyling, I read this book.

https://www.survivalinternational.org/news/8997

It feels exactly like St Louis which has a higher homicide rate than Baltimore. Chagnon's book talks about being constantly "twitchy" because you feared being ambushed.

I'd guess you're really twitchy too. All people who've lived in ghetto areas, we are all twitchy because we've all been mugged or ambushed.

I guarantee you the guy in the video will now be one of us twitchy folk. Forever.

[mike_bike_kite]

In all honesty I'm not particularly worried. Sure we have a lot of "incidents" in my immediate vicinity but it's nearly always teenage drug pushers killing each other with knives. If they change their tactics and start targeting old farts on unicycles then I'll start to worry.

[Hunka Hunka Burning Love]

Glad to see all the support for @zenleetech and hear they caught the thugs.    I just ran across his video while doing a search for Skydio 2.0 footage and was shocked by what happened to the guy.  I did a quick search here to see whether there was any mention of it but didn't see anything.

I'm telling ya this EUC community is the best for having each other's back in times of crisis.  

[tenofnine]

12 hours ago, mike_bike_kite said:

London is also getting quite dangerous for some these days. A few years ago I used to ride large engined scooters and these became a prime target for gangs of youths who rode around on stolen scooters. It used to be that scooters were stolen while parked but then they took to surrounding you at traffic lights. I'm a fairly big guy, well built and certainly don't look like a push over but I still got surrounded on two occasions at the lights and I found it was making my evening commutes fairly stressful when you had to keep an eye on your mirrors all the time. In the end I swapped back to motorcycles. The knife attacks that occur here in London tend to be one teenage drug gang against another so the general public isn't much affected by this stuff but they're still very common. There was a kid killed on a bus just a mile from my house yesterday and a shooting in my local park just a few days ago. Even the terror attack that resulted in a guy getting shot by the police last month is only a short walk from my home. I certainly don't feel worried that I'll get mugged for my wheel, it's too weird a form of transport for that and, anyway, the local police are far more likely to take it off you. Hey ho.

 

Yes the unfortunate reality of  cities and areas becoming too densely populated.

This is why I always laugh when people actually have an opinion that overpopulation is not a thing, that it's a myth.

The moment anonymity becomes a possibility in a society it can become a problem easily and quickly. Think about ii everyone drove a unique obviously different looking car....there would be far less hit and runs, DUIs, traffic violations, etc. If you knew everyone by name and face; crime can't be a problem since they are accountable and identifiable.

You have to be realistic and not blindly optimistic nowadays if you don't want to be taken advantage of, the golden rule only applies when people know they are being watched. You have to be ready if someone wants to try something. GPS track your wheel, or have a recording device ready. Even the common "good" person behind the wheel of a car feels they have enough anonymity to break the laws and run you off the road and laugh about it while speeding off. People turn ugly when they think they can get away with something.

I know it all sounds depressing, but it's the reality if you want to live in a larger city. I for one am down with how the UK and European nations are having CCTV cameras everywhere. I'd prefer that over having to open carry a gun and being paranoid 24/7. I've got nothing to hide out in public.

Edited March 9, 2020 by tenofnine

[Nic]

2 hours ago, tenofnine said:

The moment anonymity becomes a possibility in a society it can become a problem easily and quickly. Think about ii everyone drove a unique obviously different looking car....there would be far less hit and runs, DUIs, traffic violations, etc. If you knew everyone by name and face; crime can't be a problem since they are accountable and identifiable.

If we all had to do regular community work together, such as picking up litter for an hour each week, then that would stop people littering and they would also be less likely to target others. Society needs to be fairer too as many feel locked out with no future. There are lots of ways to reduce crime if we only take action. How about RFID tags embedded under our skin to track our movements? ... a step too far maybe, but I wouldn't mind it, so long as access to tracking info was restricted to crime investigations.

Edited March 10, 2020 by Nic

[mike_bike_kite]

8 hours ago, Nic said:

How about RFID tags embedded under our skin to track our movements? ... a step too far maybe, but I wouldn't mind it, so long as access to tracking info was restricted to crime investigations.

I don't think that would ever work. I doubt it would be too hard to clone anybodies RFID tag. And, if you weren't feeling too technical, then you could always cover that part of your body with a bit of tin foil. 

  

11 hours ago, tenofnine said:

Yes the unfortunate reality of  cities and areas becoming too densely populated.

This is why I always laugh when people actually have an opinion that overpopulation is not a thing, that it's a myth.

The moment anonymity becomes a possibility in a society it can become a problem easily and quickly. Think about ii everyone drove a unique obviously different looking car....there would be far less hit and runs, DUIs, traffic violations, etc. If you knew everyone by name and face; crime can't be a problem since they are accountable and identifiable.

You have to be realistic and not blindly optimistic nowadays if you don't want to be taken advantage of, the golden rule only applies when people know they are being watched. You have to be ready if someone wants to try something. GPS track your wheel, or have a recording device ready. Even the common "good" person behind the wheel of a car feels they have enough anonymity to break the laws and run you off the road and laugh about it while speeding off. People turn ugly when they think they can get away with something.

I know it all sounds depressing, but it's the reality if you want to live in a larger city. I for one am down with how the UK and European nations are having CCTV cameras everywhere. I'd prefer that over having to open carry a gun and being paranoid 24/7. I've got nothing to hide out in public.

I don't think it's cities that are over populated - it's the whole world. The real problem is convincing other people to depopulate themselves

We do have CCTV all over the place here in London but it doesn't seem to be catching criminals though it might perhaps deter a few. I do think it's wrong to fear everything though. I live in a fairly multicultural environment with a wide mixture of wealthy and very poor. I was running a large kite show on our park a year or two back and had a box for lost and found under my desk. I recall having 6 iphones handed in and a roll of cash totalling about £150 as well as keys, wallets and 6 lost children. I think people are generally pretty good but it just doesn't make interesting news so it's never reported.

 

[Nic]

On 3/10/2020 at 10:32 AM, mike_bike_kite said:

I don't think that would ever work. I doubt it would be too hard to clone anybodies RFID tag. And, if you weren't feeling too technical, then you could always cover that part of your body with a bit of tin foil. 

Yes, but cloning would be easy to spot as you can't be two places at the same time. Also, failure to get a signal would be suspicious in itself and could be evidence of sorts.

[mike_bike_kite]

But if the identity of a tag is easily forged then it wouldn't stand up in court. RFID tags also have a very limited range (about 2 feet) because they're not powered. It would be a very hard sell to get the population to accept having something like that stuck in them.

[travsformation]

On 3/10/2020 at 11:32 AM, mike_bike_kite said:

I was running a large kite show on our park a year or two back and had a box for lost and found under my desk. I recall having 6 iphones handed in and a roll of cash totalling about £150 as well as keys, wallets and 6 lost children.

6 lost children? Handed in? And put in the lost and found box, I assume?

On 3/10/2020 at 11:32 AM, mike_bike_kite said:

I think people are generally pretty good but it just doesn't make interesting news so it's never reported.

I like your optimism. I think it was singer/songwriter/activist Michael Franti who said "Life is a struggle between cynicism and hope, we have to keep the hope alive"

[mike_bike_kite]

  

10 hours ago, travsformation said:

6 lost children? Handed in? And put in the lost and found box, I assume?

At a largish family event like this you're always going to have children separated from their families. Sometimes they're handed in, sometimes they even hand themselves in but more worrying is when you have a distraught mother trying to remember what her 2 year old daughter was wearing. We actually have teams trained to find people without being too invasive on the crowds.   

10 hours ago, travsformation said:

I like your optimism. I think it was singer/songwriter/activist Michael Franti who said "Life is a struggle between cynicism and hope, we have to keep the hope alive"

I honestly believe that most people are good. A small example is the Christmas display that we put on our high street. It's a quaint little Christian nativity scene in a glass box that stands by the town Christmas tree. In the 60 years it's been put there, it hasn't been vandalised once. Also, believe it or not, it's the same guy that's been setting it up for 60 years! I'm not religious but that does make me think that there's still hope for the world.

[Lillian]

That's crazy. I'm so sorry that happened to you, but glad you got the wheel back and that you had your armor on.

Meeting people is one of the most fun things about having PEVs. This is certainly a cautionary tale. A random guy asked to ride mine, and of course I said no. I am really careful when people only ask how much it cost. 

What really sucks is that they took from a humble, good person who really can't easily replace those things. I hope they get what's  coming.