Hi Beau,

Yes, I keep doors locked when driving. We live in a safe part of the suburbs, so I dont need to be paranoid. I keep doors locked at night definitely.

In stores, oh, I dont worry about it. If I see a customer getting irate, I slink away unnoticed. I would simply leave a basket full of items and head to the parking lot if I thought there was trouble brewing.

Yes, I always keep my doors locked when I drive and at home. In stores I am always alert. And at night I always sleep with at least 2 lights burning in my home. There are too many bad people in this world.

Yes I lock my home doors at all times. I had a thief come while I was home during the day. I think he thought I was gone.

My car automatically locks doors. Scary if you need to get out of the car due to car accidents.

I will not walk at certain hours of the day unless I am with someone, just for safety. I know evil lurks in the night time hours.

I feel safe in stores even if someone gets irate. I will just move to next check out lane to get out quicker.

When using public transportation I am always caustious. You never know who is out there.

My take on this is that it is just common sense to use door locks. Do I feel safe? Absolutely. But my safety does not depend on locks or weapons. I trust that which guards me night and day every moment of my life from birth to death. My Rock and my Fortress is God, the Lord.

I feel safe in my neighborhood, but do not feel safe at home. I think my husband wants me dead. Look what i just said....I've been to the police...I have to get an order of protection. Why am I stalling? Because I am terrified about the future, however what future is there for me if I am not here?? Today, I caught him handling the mail, ok, it had his name on it, but I've been doing the mail thing thru out the whole marriage, and all of a sudden, he is taking the mail off the table, even though it was addressed to him, it was medical stuff, that I've been managing, stuff that is junk mail that I know what to keep and what not to keep...I've been doing this for years, and now he wants a part of this, so I sat down with him, and closed the door and explained nicely, that we go thru the mail together, and I am not hiding anything from him...I am just been doing it thruout the whole marriage. Apparently, he wants the marriage to be different, but not really, it is just to aggreviate me, just another aggrevation, so, I told him, if he was so unhappy, he should make arrangemens to leave, he said he wou ld leave at the end of the month...I really hope so, he already gave his g/f his soap dish, it is no longer there, when I mentioned it, he said, "oh, you are making a big deal about $1.95 soap dish?" He wants out, and told me he is terrified, yet for the last 11 years, my life has been a living hell. So, I don't even care about the g/f, I am sick now from the aggrevation, and my dog has copd., and my cat, diabetes. The thing is, I don't know how I am going to take care of the cat, he is 18 lbs..

I had a social worker who told me I could live on $500 per month, I don't know what planet she was talking about...But I have a new s/w who is going to help me....I pray to God to let me get thru this, and my dog and cat to be well.

I always lock my car doors while driving, and never lock my house.

To answer yoiur question another way, I feel Comfortable just about everywhere. And I"ve been in bad neighborhoods in strange cities, and in fancy symphonies, ballets, and hole-in-the-wall (or floor to be exact....no kidding) bars. But if I don't feel comfortable, I don't try to fake it. People can see through faking it.
And I always trust my instints. When the locals are on alert.....something is up. I may not know what....but something is definitely up. So if I'm in the woods and it goes silent (birds and such are actually pretty noisy)...then I'm more alert.

Same with bad neighborhoods, or anywhere. If I ask "what's up?" and no one answers....then I'm even more alert, stay quiet, and make a slow retreat out of there.

I used to have a very well trained golden retriever who would heel by my side. I was young, white and female, but very much bigger men would cross to the other side of the street. (We had gone for a walk in a bad neighborhood to get a 6-pack of beer.) I left him on "Stay" sitting outside while we went in to get it. No one bothered him or us.

Gavin DeBecker on Fear and safety:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgNuw-YlBxA

Do i feel safe? Reasonably... but to my mind "being aware" about your surroundings while out and about and just generally, is just plain sensible!
I wouldn't go to bed without "locking up" downstairs, that would be plain foolishness.
I wouldn't travel around London at night on my own.
I wouldn't take short cuts through a park or down an alley at night.

I could go on, you have to be sensible about these things but you cant let worries about safety stop you living and going out and enjoying yourself.

Ive had 2 cars stolen from outside my house, ive been verbally abused on a bus, ive been in a shop where someone tried to grab a handbag and ive witnessed a bank robbery! I was working in a shop and looking out the window and there was a screech of brakes on cars, a man came out the bank and had a gun in his hand and was firing at a car, whom i'm guessing was unmarked police.

Bad things happen at any time wherever you are, whats more important is that you trust yourself to deal with whatever life throws at you.

Probably the least safe places in the state are college campuses.

The reason being lots and lots of younger girls out on their own for the first time and walking alone. Also lots of kids drinking. And more distance and places where, if attacted, someone could drag you....

Campuses also attract lots of strange people.

I feel safe in my neighborhood, but I keep the doors locked.
I feel safe in my car, but it automatically locks the door for me.

I don't feel safe in my home because my H has 3 loaded and unlocked guns in 2 different safes, and he does not "allow" me to have access to those safes. He says they were bought for self-protection, but I am the one who is home mostly 24/7...so what good do they do me since I can't get at them?

I never wanted any guns in our home, and now there are 3, the last 2 bought without any discussion between the two of us at all.

So the most important place to feel safe, in your own home, I don't feel safe at all, at least when he is home and has access to the guns.

No, I am not living in a safe home environment, and I will likely be leaving as soon as possible.