First, there is a big difference between letting a dog go off leash in a park or even on a walk and letting a dog run free in the neighborhood unsupervised. Don’t you have animal control where you live? I’ve collected a few roaming dogs in my time, and either returned them home if I knew it or if they had a tag, or to the shelter if they didn’t. None of them were remotely vicious. People around here whose vicious dogs hurt someone go to jail. As well they should.
Yeah, some people don’t know how to control their dog - the same kind of people who, when their kid misbehaves in a restaurant, yells at them without doing anything physical to fix the problem. My dog knows how to come, though if you give her a treat once she’ll remember it and expect more forever.
A hint - don’t back away. If a dog is being a pain, and running from you, running towards her just makes her think you are playing. Saying “come” and backing away from her attracts her. So, you are attracting these dogs, not telling them to get lost. A firm “sit” or “down” often works. I’ve used it for dogs who have come up to me.
Before my daughter made us get a dog I was pretty nervous around them. Now I understand them, and have trained a few for guide dogs, I’m not. I was a letter carrier one summer and had two dogs attack me, so its not like I’ve never had bad experiences. But now I understand all the mistakes I used to make around dogs.
None of which excuses owners from keeping their dogs from bugging other people, of course.
How anyone ever finds the time for all those crack deals and spy handovers, I don’t know.
I assumed you were going to talk about people being attacked by dogs, or witnessing an attack, or growing up in a culture where dogs are generally wild - those are all understandable reasons or disliking dogs and not trusting them to come anywhere near even on a lead.