Do you feel safe going for a walk in your neighborhood when it's dark out?

There were two murders in this area (which I am moving out of in two weeks) recently that really gave me pause. No, I would not walk at night although I feel pretty safe on the property itself.

Yes, I do so very frequently. Unarmed.

I am fine in my quiet sleepy little town.
It is a core reason why I live where I live.
My house was broken into 18 months ago, but I feel this was a rarity. (The have caught them and they are now in jail)
I walk after hours often. My daughter walks home from school solo. I do make sure we monitor and assess any odd activity.

Yes. I can walk outside at night and not have a car come down my road for many hours. I will admit I am a little afraid (maybe irrationally) of the coyote pack that lives in the area. When they take down a deer you can hear them howling. It is creepy. I figure if they can out-maneuver a lightning quick, muscular, 70 kg, animal like a white tail deer, they can easily get someone like me. I “carry” just in case.

I don’t walk after dark alone or with a dog, but any time I walk I am armed.
My small town is fairly safe, but fairly close to I-44, so it’s not a smart idea.

Absolutely. I live nearly out in the country (very ex-urban Atlanta) and night time walks are very quiet and very pleasant. The only negative is that we don’t have sidewalks out this far, so I’m on the side of the road.

@LuckyGuy A pack of coyotes would have to be pretty damned hungry to take out an adult human. I will admit to having an uncomfortable experience once while riding my bike in the pitch black through a river valley, though. Hearing all those yips in the dark really bring out the prey instinct. ;)

I live in a suburban village and will walk alone at night.

I have always enjoyed the night life. There is a little crime around here, but not enough to worry me any.

I live in a small rural town. I am more likely to encounter a group of wild deer walking down the centre of the street than I am to run into a gang of surly youths or a mugger.
Of course, I’d have no luck finding any kind of store or even gas station open after 10:00 PM.
I still lock my doors because I lived most of my life in big cities.

Same answer as @janbb. In summer, I sometimes go out for a star gazing walk after Midnight.

I don’t walk around my neighborhood at all, day or night. Too many speeding drunken redneck teenagers. If not for the horrendous driving, I’d avoid walking around the neighborhood due to the population of poorly-raised vicious breed dogs.

@glacial I know that is supposedly true. But I don’t see why they don’t start hunting sluggish, unaware humans. It creeps me out when I see their tracks in the snow around my house and realize that I would not get 5 yards if one wanted to get me.
One of the pleasures of living near a massive lake in a rural area without street lights is the night sky. I love to lie down on a lawn chair and watch the occasional meteor shower. But even there in my own back field I will slip something into my pocket.
My doors are never locked even on vacation. Do you know where we hide the keys? Neither do we.

@LuckyGuy They don’t want us because easier prey are plentiful. They associate humans with risk, and don’t consider us to be worth it (except for children). The flip side, of course, is that where there are coyotes, it is likely that there is the odd cougar also – and those have no problem stalking humans.

Yes, I feel completely safe. My grandson and his girlfriend love the night and they frequently take walks at all hours of the night.

Yes. And in our neighborhood we have a large number of runners. It is not unusual to see someone, male and female, out exercising alone.

I’d love to live out in the country, to go for walks, also so that I could play this Saturday mornings. Crank it up!

No worries in my neighbourhood. Now that the weather is getting warmer, and I actually want to be out, it stops getting dark out… so… there is that. I live in a small suburb, but when I lived in town, I never had any trouble walking in the city alone. In fact, I used to do it in New Zealand, where I lived before, as well.

I take a long walk every through my neighborhood every evening after sundown and feel pretty safe. I do see other people walking, women and older couples, who sometmes seem nerevous as I pass, I’m sure simply because they don’t know me.

Of course, an elephant walking down the street can be pretty intimidating.

Yea my neighborhood is pretty safe but even when I lived in other areas that were less safe I wasn’t really concerned. I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that I’m male. Unfortunately a female walking alone down a dark street at night is much more a target than a guy.

There were a couple time in Belize that I’d be walking alone or with one other person that I’d be a bit cautious at night time. It wasn’t from fear of humans though but more along the lines of @LuckyGuy ‘s answer. Except instead of coyotes it was jaguars. One night I decided to catch a cab back to my house instead of walking like I normally did and a huge jaguar walked across the road in front of our car.

No.
I’ll walk in the evening, but not once the sun goes down. I live in a really dangerous part of the state, and although my specific neighborhood isn’t so bad, I’d rather not risk it. I don’t even like to go outside into my own yard after dark if I am home alone. Murder, rape and robbery are pretty much daily news, and just a few weeks ago a local girl was torn out of her shower and tied up in her closet with her own bra by home invaders. Once the sun is down, my door is bolted and I am safely tucked inside, and maybe that makes me paranoid, but I’d rather be paranoid than dead.

Of course, I live in Germany.

My neighborhood is quite safe, and I often walk after dark, and i often walk to the train at 5 in the morning.

The scary thing here is raccoons. One was acting very strange last summer, out in the street about five feet from the curb, I saw him from 50 yards. He did not move, so I crossed the street and kept my distance. Last thing I need is rabies.

At my home in the City, I wouldn’t think twice about it.
At my country home, we have bears, mountain lions, and such. I wouldn’t do it.

Not in my current neighborhood, no. It’s not a great part of town. But I’ve lived in other places where I felt quite safe.

I just moved from TN and back there I was afraid to walk down my driveway at night (it was a long drive) because of racoons, coyotes and other animals. The also was enough crime that it made me nervous, although out where my house was violent crime was not usual, it was mostly theft during the day.

Where I live now, an apartment complex in Clearwater, FL, I would feel reasonably safe at night, it is well lit, many people walk their dogs. I wouldn’t do it at midnight, but during dark hours in the evening I would. I did look up crime for this zip code and it is half what it was in my old zipcode in TN, and in TN I was in a more rural, part suburban area. To look at the two places you would guess the opposite I think if you did not know the city and state of each.

I’d feel perfectly safe.

I live in a quiet and peaceful neighbourhood, so I feel completely safe to go out at night. I also go unarmed, like most people in my neighbourhood (and probably my city)
At a time I even dreamed of going out alone at midnight for some ghost sighting, but I knew for sure my parents just wouldn’t allow it lol

I don’t worry but at the same time I wouldn’t strap a set of earbuds on and not keep an eye on things around me. Situational awareness is mandatory no matter where you are.

Exactly, @woodcutter. I always say that too. It is safe, but I’m always cautious and aware of my surroundings.

I never walk alone at night, no matter where I am. It’s just when you think you’re safe and let your guard down that something horrible happens.

@woodcutter Agreed.

Walking around alone might be asking for trouble some places, but which places?

In high crime areas?

@woodcutter No… I would argue that it’s not “asking for trouble” for anyone to walk alone. But it is sensible to be aware of one’s surroundings when walking alone at night, no matter where you are.

Nope. There are shady characters walking all over town at all hours of the night. This town has a history of stabbings, drug dealing, a few kidnappings, and police standoffs. I stay well aware of my surroundings walking around in broad daylight in downtown, and I wouldn’t set foot off our property in the dark without a weapon of some sort.

Of course, my carefulness in town is due to some special circumstances – one, I carry a lot of cash to and from the bank for work (which everyone in town is aware of), two, there’s an suspicious acquaintance of mine who has followed me on occasion, and three, many close calls with careless drivers have made me paranoid.

@glacial ”No… I would argue that it’s not “asking for trouble” for anyone to walk alone”. Well, I supose I couldn’t argue with that if you can run like Carl Lewis in a pinch. Can you? I cant.

I live in a city that is pretty quiet at night. I know the areas to stay away from. I have walked around at night no problems.

Yeah, well…I’m dead and all. People are usually pretty scared of me.

Nope. I live in Singapore, where the streets are considered pretty safe, but I’m horribly paranoid.

Things seem to be pretty quiet in my part of town. I would not hesitate to walk at any time of night or day, unarmed. I can’t say the same of every part of the town, but my neighborhood is extremely safe.

@Mama_Cakes Great music! I’d love to hear some of that live!

When I was younger I used to go off walking all over the place at night. There was a huge reservoir near by and I would go off in the middle of the night for a walk around the water when I couldn’t sleep. I had gone for walks in the middle of the night and not thought anything of it.

Now, although I don’t live in a risky place, I wouldn’t walk around the neighbourhood at night. I have never heard of any attacks in my area, it’s a quiet suburb, but I still wouldn’t take a chance. I think in part this is driven by conditioning in that women are cautioned to be more vigilent but I also don’t think that’s a bad thing. I would rather err on the side of caution than the opposite. I certainly advise my daughters not to walk around on their own late at night. They both live closer in to the city and I know one of them was bothered by two men in a ute when coming home late at night one evening. It scared her and she hasn’t gone walking on her own again. I think it’s very sad that women can’t feel safe to walk about at night even in areas that don’t have a high crime rate.