Thursday, April 3, 2014

This safety thing again

So another couple of tourists got robbed and assaulted - a particularly vicious attack this time.  A dreadful thing. But as I keep underlining it is so rare that it was major news.  Been on all the tv news and current affairs shows.  The chattering classes on talkback radio went on and on about it. 

It must be set against the other news in that area - the fact that crime has been steadily dropping in most centres. Murders are showing a bit of an increase, but the statisticians tell us that it is not a trend, just an aberration this year.  

Sexual assaults are also up - reported sexual assaults, and that's the key. More women are prepared to come forward and complain about low-lifes that commit that sort of crime. Thus reported crime may be up but we don't know about this type of assault overall because there is no data to compare.

The two young women who were attacked in this latest event were hitch-hiking. Normally that's  safe enough if there are two of you, but it just shows that there are exceptions to any rule.

My advice is take a careful look at the driver and passengers and if they look dodgy, give it a miss.

Having said that, I have very occasionally been forced to hitch-hike - usually because there is no public transport available. I once got picked up at about 11pm by a bunch of hard Maori dudes travelling from Hamilton to the casino in Auckland.  They were all drinking beer and looked less than savoury - but, hey, it was late and I needed to get home. They were great. We had a lot of laughs, I even had a beer with them and they dropped me right at my home in a suburb of Auckland. As I said, there are exceptions to every rule. 

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