Personal safety when hiking alone
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Carlos_421 wrote: »Australia, where everything wants to kill you and you're not allowed to stop it. Lol
ETA: with your options for self defense being so limited, I would second the suggestions for a sturdy stick and taking the pup.
Also, walk tall and make eye contact with everyone. It portrays confidence which makes you seem less vulnerable.
Australia, where the homocide rate is more than 5 times lower than the US.
It was like that before they banned every reasonable method of self defense.
Pretty sure pepper spray and tasers aren't major contributors to the homicide rate of any country.6 -
Lillymoo01 wrote: »Carlos_421 wrote: »Australia, where everything wants to kill you and you're not allowed to stop it. Lol
ETA: with your options for self defense being so limited, I would second the suggestions for a sturdy stick and taking the pup.
Also, walk tall and make eye contact with everyone. It portrays confidence which makes you seem less vulnerable.
Haa haa. Our homicide rate is tiny in comparison to the US and here most victims are known to the perpetrator. We have crocodiles and sharks which we won't have a problem with when hiking. There are snakes which will leave you alone if you leave them alone. Kangaroos, koala, emus, wombats .... certainly don't need a spray to protect us from those. That only leaves those killer drop bears
Banning pepper spray and tasers aren't the cause of the low homicide rate in Australia.
For that matter, neither is the gun ban considering your homicide rate was just as low before the ban.
And you forgot the spiders. Y'all got spiders that make it reasonable to carry a bazooka. Lol9 -
Lol the internet is full of Australians poking fun at all the large and/or scary bugs, animals, and plants in Australia. There's a tough crowd in here tonight.
OP, I don't think you're over reacting. You need to do what you have to in order to feel safe and confident. I suspect the most useful strategies are the ones that make you look like a bad target, so you never get to the point where you have to defend yourself, and making sure someone knows where you are and when you expect to return. I sympathize, I have a tough time feeling safe when I'm by myself out in the world and not in a crowded place. I'll only go solo on short hikes with a quick route out, and even so I tend to bail if anything looks sketchy, probably unnecessarily.8 -
Carlos_421 wrote: »Carlos_421 wrote: »Australia, where everything wants to kill you and you're not allowed to stop it. Lol
ETA: with your options for self defense being so limited, I would second the suggestions for a sturdy stick and taking the pup.
Also, walk tall and make eye contact with everyone. It portrays confidence which makes you seem less vulnerable.
Australia, where the homocide rate is more than 5 times lower than the US.
It was like that before they banned every reasonable method of self defense.
Pretty sure pepper spray and tasers aren't major contributors to the homicide rate of any country.
Yeah ... no. Our homicide rates are actually at a record low but don't let a little fact get in the way of fiction.7 -
I was thinking more kidnapping or assault. Didn’t even consider being murdered. Glad it’s statistically unlikely.4
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Carlos_421 wrote: »Lillymoo01 wrote: »Carlos_421 wrote: »Australia, where everything wants to kill you and you're not allowed to stop it. Lol
ETA: with your options for self defense being so limited, I would second the suggestions for a sturdy stick and taking the pup.
Also, walk tall and make eye contact with everyone. It portrays confidence which makes you seem less vulnerable.
Haa haa. Our homicide rate is tiny in comparison to the US and here most victims are known to the perpetrator. We have crocodiles and sharks which we won't have a problem with when hiking. There are snakes which will leave you alone if you leave them alone. Kangaroos, koala, emus, wombats .... certainly don't need a spray to protect us from those. That only leaves those killer drop bears
Banning pepper spray and tasers aren't the cause of the low homicide rate in Australia.
For that matter, neither is the gun ban considering your homicide rate was just as low before the ban.
And you forgot the spiders. Y'all got spiders that make it reasonable to carry a bazooka. Lol
Again, statistics show our homicide rates are significantly lower since bringing in tighter gun controls.8 -
I feel like this may turn into a dumpster fire regarding gun control. Please don’t.11
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Hannah--get bear spray. If you had a gun you'd just hesitate to use it anyway, because in most cases you'd still be trying to calculate a way to get out of the situation without killing someone (especially in a remote area where emergency response to their gunshot wound would be delayed). With bear spray you put them in a nasty backwoods pickle, but you can get away and they probably won't die unless they do something stupid like walk off a cliff while they can't see anything.
I understand what lilly is saying about the stats, however your personal experience is informing your fear. We don't know the nature of the creepy experience, but one thing to remember is that even as you were at the time it happened, without training or weapon, you got away and are here to post about it now. Whatever you did worked--your existing survival skills were adequate to that particular challenge.
It makes sense to become better prepared in case the next threat is more dangerous, but take some comfort in the fact you already prevailed in one situation.
PS: now I go back and see pepper spray is illegal where you live. In a pinch a handful of dirt can be pretty effective.
Martial arts come in two broad flavors--striking and grappling. I suggest taking up a grappling type art because it will teach you ways to escape when someone grabs you. The problem with a striking art for us women is if we fail to deliver adequate power in a strike we'll just piss the attacker off. With a grappling art you keep escaping, he's expending much more energy than you are, and if you can make him fall one or more times then all his weight and energy are working against him when he hits the ground. Grappling arts include jiu jitsu, aikido, judo, etc---but you want to focus on situations where *you* stand and *they* fall, not wrestling around in holds on the ground.4 -
It's not clear that bear spray is legal in Australia. I haven't seen any indication that it is or any place that seems to sell it.
Even if it was, bear spray is NOT the same thing as pepper spray and not considered an effective defense against human attackers. It is much weaker and while it may possibly scare off a human attacker, it will not incapacitate them.2 -
We don’t have bear spray for the simple reason that we completely lack bears15
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When I was a kid my family had a beagle who was super hyper but a love-bug to everyone. Once at a beach when I was 13 she was walking me (way out ahead on the leash) and we stumbled across a group of drunk high school boys. One of them started approaching like he was going to drape his drunken arm over my shoulder or something, and my hyperactive but sweet beagle turned into Cujo. She threw such a fit (baying, growling, lunging at them as much as the leash would allow, hackles up) the whole group of teens ran away, leaving their stuff, until I moved on.
In the presence of a threat your friendly pup could go rabid wolf in a heartbeat. They may have brains the size of a walnut but they expend 100% of their mental effort trying to figure humans out, and they're pretty good at identifying who's a threat.8 -
Hannahwalksfar wrote: »We don’t have bear spray for the simple reason that we completely lack bears
Koala spray. You never know when one will mistake you for a eucalyptus tree and start gnawing away.11 -
Lillymoo01 wrote: »Carlos_421 wrote: »Lillymoo01 wrote: »Carlos_421 wrote: »Australia, where everything wants to kill you and you're not allowed to stop it. Lol
ETA: with your options for self defense being so limited, I would second the suggestions for a sturdy stick and taking the pup.
Also, walk tall and make eye contact with everyone. It portrays confidence which makes you seem less vulnerable.
Haa haa. Our homicide rate is tiny in comparison to the US and here most victims are known to the perpetrator. We have crocodiles and sharks which we won't have a problem with when hiking. There are snakes which will leave you alone if you leave them alone. Kangaroos, koala, emus, wombats .... certainly don't need a spray to protect us from those. That only leaves those killer drop bears
Banning pepper spray and tasers aren't the cause of the low homicide rate in Australia.
For that matter, neither is the gun ban considering your homicide rate was just as low before the ban.
And you forgot the spiders. Y'all got spiders that make it reasonable to carry a bazooka. Lol
Again, statistics show our homicide rates are significantly lower since bringing in tighter gun controls.
Statistics show the homicide rate was already dropping even leading up to the 1996 ban and was already super low compared to many other developed countries.
That aside (it's neither the point of this thread nor of my post you replied to), I still find it silly to ban nonlethal methods of self defense such as pepper spray and tasers, leaving people like the OP wondering what in the world they can do to keep themselves safe when out alone.
And given that OP lives in such a place where these strict regulations against defensive tools exist, the best advice I can give remains the same as in my original response: carry yourself with confidence to avoid the appearance of vulnerability, carry a big stick and take the dog.
Those steps won't necessarily do much to save anyone if an attack occurs (unless you have a dog with a protective instinct or are highly proficient with a staff) but they can work in your favor to make you seem a less desirable target in the first place.10 -
Lol the internet is full of Australians poking fun at all the large and/or scary bugs, animals, and plants in Australia. There's a tough crowd in here tonight.
OP, I don't think you're over reacting. You need to do what you have to in order to feel safe and confident. I suspect the most useful strategies are the ones that make you look like a bad target, so you never get to the point where you have to defend yourself, and making sure someone knows where you are and when you expect to return. I sympathize, I have a tough time feeling safe when I'm by myself out in the world and not in a crowded place. I'll only go solo on short hikes with a quick route out, and even so I tend to bail if anything looks sketchy, probably unnecessarily.
You get me.2 -
Just get pepper spray anyway, I'm sure it's available online...I'd chose protection over being a dead victim...4
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If you’re caught with it the fines are horrendous. I’m not a law breaker9
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So ppl are just walking around with guns just like that? Thats trippy.
I wouldn’t go anywere where I thought I wasn’t safe. If i felt it was unsafe to the point where I was taking pictures of licence plates I wouldn’t bother. Just bring the pepper spray if it’s that serious for you.
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bosque1234 wrote: »Just get pepper spray anyway, I'm sure it's available online...I'd chose protection over being a dead victim...
Statements like this are not helpful and not reflective of what reality actually is. I certainly support people taking common sense precautions and self protections steps in an attempt to create a feeling of safety. But we also need to look at the reality of what the real risks to people are. A woman is far, far, more likely to be attacked by an intimate partner than a stranger. Or get in a car crash, or fall in the shower. Or a whole host of other things. Social media has not helped things by constantly creating an echo chamber convincing everyone they are going to get ax murdered if they walk outside.
Reasonable safety precautions are a good thing. And if someone feels unsafe, there is nothing wrong with them feeling that way and they should take steps to feel protected. But trying to irrationally fear monger them is not helpful.10 -
JeromeBarry1 wrote: »Hannahwalksfar wrote: »Never mind. It’s illegal here.
Here in Texas Monday for the first time in several decades it will be legal to possess and carry brass knuckles. Maybe that for you there?
Nope.. brass knuckles are also illegal2 -
Diatonic12 wrote: »Who absorbs all of the costs for search and rescues. Ultimately, it comes down to taxpayer dollars. Should it remain a free public service. That's what many question in my neck of the woods. Who pays for the boots on the ground, the search plane, rescue or recovery.0
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