I don’t worry, but I do take basic precautions.
Hmm. It claims taking the Subway to work is putting me in mortal danger. I’m not convinced.
The only place that I have ever lived that I thought I had true truly fear for my life was New Orleans during the early 1990’s. It really was that bad outside of the major tourism areas like Bourbon Street. It was the murder capital of the U.S. back then. I was in the only large supermarket in my home area once when a woman (a doctor) got carjacked and killed on the spot right there when she resisted. They built a guard tower right in the middle of the parking lot and manned it with snipers to help recover from it. Other people got killed when they didn’t take muggers seriously especially foreign tourists that thought they had the option to just ignore them and keep walking. I stumbled upon one of those situations once and was gone as fast as a white boy can possibly run.
Even there, I never had anything truly bad happen to me but friends did including home invasions in middle of the night that ended in rape with their boyfriends tied up and forced to watch. I did have a few close calls though. A guy charged my car from the bushes at 3 am at a stoplight once and tried to open the door in a presumed attempted carjacking. I always had my doors locked while driving when I lived there so I just took off leaving him far behind.
I was put in charge of a wild visiting country boy from Tennessee once during a bar hopping expedition. My only job was to keep him safe but he escaped while I went to the bathroom in a popular French Quarter bar. He went missing for close to 16 hours until the police could piece together what he was talking about and where he was supposed to be because he knew nothing about the area. It turned out that he decided to take a very drunken walk on his own and got mugged twice in the same night leaving him with nothing but his favorite cassette tape in his front pocket. The second mugger was going to kill him because he didn’t have anything else left to give except for that tape and he wasn’t about to give that up. They fought and he won sort of but still didn’t know what to do in his extremely inebriated and injured state so he just wandered around for a few hours until he sobered up enough to flag down a passing police car to sort the rest of it out.
New Orleans is much safer post-Katrina but you still need to be really careful in the backwaters of the French Quarter there and even moreso in the more questionable parts of town. There are a thriving population of people with little morality that will do whatever they can to score a few dollars.
I’d say 2, although I’ve been shot at (well, a bullet fired in my general direction) at least once and have been physically attacked by deranged individuals on two separate occasions. Despite that, I don’t dwell on such things. I just try to maintain situational awareness; it has become such a second nature that I don’t really consciously think about it, but it has gotten me out of a couple of dodgy situations before anything bad happened.
Tibia, please. It would accomplish a bucket list item and quite likely be less expensive.
To answer the original question, between zero (most of the time, at home, in a restaurant, visiting family) to a two or three (very rarely, most likely in an unfamiliar city, at work, visiting the other family).
I’m honestly more concerned that I would get purse-snatched than attacked, and even that is unlikely where I live and work. A breakin at my house when I’m at work or otherwise away is far more likely.
Well that was silly. 
But probably about right on target.
That was weird. Negative 12 for me.
Tibia obviously. Bones can heal themselves, tires cannot.
Here in upstate NY, about a 2 at the most. I would say a 1, but I always lock my doors.
Back in the Chicago suburbs, maybe a 4. I had an iPod stolen out of my locked car, but at least the thief was considerate enough to 1) not break my window to get it and 2) re-lock my door after taking it. I’ve never been a victim of any other violent theft/crime (unless you count DV perpetrated by male family members, which I don’t). I’m way more worried about being victimized by someone I know than a stranger.
- I live in a smallish town now, but It was a 0 when I lived in Detroit, too. People worry too damn much.
Serious assault score -31, criminals should fear me!
Murder score -14
Burglary score 39
Toldja I was boring 
I am surprised by the number of people that say they have no personal familiarity with violent crime. I come from a small town with an usually high crime rate. We tend to know everyone from the richest to the most criminally degenerate personally. It would take me a while to count the number of people that I have personally known that have been murdered and I know an almost equal number of people that have done the deed themselves including one of my childhood friends who is doing life in Angola for it.
Another one of my friends is now in a permanent vegetative state because someone broke into his house and beat almost completely to death but not quite. They broke his skull, back and lots of other things but he is still technically alive and in the hospital permanently until he dies from it but nobody knows how long that will be. I also know three people that have killed their spouses including a recent one that ended in a murder-suicide when the father kidnapped the mother while she was picking up their daughter from day-care. The child was saved but the parents were both found dead on a rural road a few miles away. My first babysitter when I was little, one of the sweetest women that I ever knew, was stabbed to death over a few dollars in the middle of the night when a crackhead broke into her house.
The most horrifying one that I know of personally sounds like an urban legend but it isn’t. A 12 year old boy went to a slumber party with his friends and started chatting with a ‘girl’ in a nearby city. He was enthusiastic about meeting her so she offered to send a cab to come get him so that they could meet up. I doubt he ever expected the cab to show up but it did and he got in. The cab driver was the ‘girl’ all along and known child predator. He had his way with him, killed him and then dumped his body beside a rural road.
Again, I worry about other dangers like car accidents much more but I am surprised that most people don’t have at least some direct association with at least one violent crime.
I’ve lived in quiet small cities for most of my life, but I certainly know some victims of violent crimes or perpetrators thereof. Admittedly everyone in my hometown, where I grew up, is nuts. It’s the water or something. I’m not even kidding.
I’ve known two severe serial child molesters who went to jail. One was a neighbor (and dad to my friends, we were back and forth all the time) and one was a teacher when I was 14, a popular charismatic guy whose daughter is my age and an FB friend.
A kid I knew a bit in high school–the youngest brother of a friend–committed a horrifying murder with a friend and blamed it on Satan or something.
A woman I am acquainted with, the SIL of a friend, has been missing for a week now.
I’m sure I could think of more. I don’t think it’s terribly likely that my house will be broken into or something, but it’s not impossible.
Oh yeah, a buddy of ours had his dad murdered and his mom blamed for it when a drugged-out kid broke in while they were asleep.
Shagnasty, your experiences aren’t really the norm… at least among those that I know IRL.
0 for me.
In the city that I live in - maybe a 1. I work for a public library situated downtown and next to the bus station. I see more stuff happen within those two blocks than anywhere else, but I have not personally felt any significant danger so far.
Zero. I also do not feverishly check homicide statistics before traveling.
Zero. It’s never happened in 67 years, and I don’t expect it to.
Zero. I live and work in small towns and at home we are on a cul-de-sac at the end of a dirt road with a driveway. It would take a lot to even find us let alone hurt us.
Although…a man and his dog did come to the door the other night asking about paths through the community…maybe I should increase my answer.
Agreed. I would say 0. I’ve never been a victim, been threatened, or known anyone who was assaulted or threatened with assault. I live in New York City, and also grew up here. Presently, NYC has a very low rate of per capita violent crime.
Funny that there are small towns where you can barely walk down the street without being murdered (not that I think that’s a national norm, it just flies hilariously in the face of “big city bad because danger, small town good because safe.”)
At home ( Luanda ) it is a zero. The biggest threat here is food poisoning and malaria.
When I travel for work ( downtown Houston ) it moves to about a 7. My colleagues that work here advise me to take a cab if I go out after dark.