IABU to think I shouldn't be told off by the police by daring to be a woman out alone after dark?

[MsScarlettInTheLibrary]

I was walking through a deserted cut-through at around 11pm, on my way home. I'd been shopping and to the gym, as evidenced by the bags I carried.

I happened across a pair of policemen on bikes, who saw fit to brake and tell me I 'should be careful walking by myself at this time of night'.

IABU to feel angry and offended by this?

oh and obviously no idea why the triple post happened (bar my absolute desperation)

In answering your question, there's a shed load of cash to be made out of the fortress mentality.

Makes us suspicious of other people feel responsible for other peoples criminal behaviour.

No love from me I'm afraid, I only have negative attention and hostility to offer.

that looks like some terrifying haiku
worker bees can leave
even drones can fly away
the queen is their slave

Why Amberleaf? There were policemen in it!

you described it as deserted!

Yes there were policemen in it at that time but im sure they dont stand centry at all times?

You can take it as patronising if you like-your choice entirely, but as i said anyone walking around alone at night is at some level of risk.

i picked up a lone male hitchhiker with a great big rucksack on a deserted road in the middle of nowhere at 2am once. drove him a couple of hours to a motorway service station (i was going that way) and dropped him off with £20.

every single person i know, male and female, treated me like a fruitcake for months. i thought dh was going to have a coronary when i told him.

i would have asked the policemen if they were advising lone men to be careful as well. but other than that, i would probably have said 'oh, yes, i will. you too!' and carried on.

but i'm not allowed to pick up hitchhikers any more. because apparently they are all, without exception, axe wielding maniacs. particularly the ones with penises.

(as it happened, he was a con man, but that's a completely different story)

Madwoman, i agree with your dh and everyone else! I think if i did that dp would confiscate my keys and never let me out again, i'm all for walking in the dark at 11pm but even i think you took a chance!

I live in a town where just last week a woman was attacked in broad daylight on a main bus route. No one has came forward as seeing anything, so should we stop going out in the day? Where were the police then? Probably in our town centre tryin to avoid the drunken brawls that happen so often.

We really must move!

Yanbu op to want to be able to walk where and when you want but just be grateful the police were about, at least if there is some police presence then the risk of anything happening are lower.

Unfortunately its the world we live in now! :(

There is a cut like this near me. A few attacks happened in it. When people still used the cut after that the police had the street lights turned off. To me that just seems the wrong way round!

Yabu ....it was a comment made for your safety

FFS Scarlet Sounds like you have a problem with authority figures. I'm with Tiffany... having a few police and RCMP friends, if they are cruising through, they have information that you don't, and they don't have to inform you, but it is their job to stop and make sure you are aware. They probably wanted a good look at you too as if they do find you later as a victim of a circumstance, they'll have a better understanding perhaps where you were coming/going from. Its much better to be friendly with the police.

There was a girl up island a couple of months ago that when through a cut through area that she was very familiar with, on her to a party just after 9pm. Unfortunately, she went missing and when they found her body, she was raped, tortured and then set alight.

I live in suburbia, but there is a number of cut through areas in the woods and the police patrol them on their bikes. I appreciate their presence.

You do know that when they're out on their bikes, they're generally patrolling known problem areas and not training for the annual 5k Naked Policeman On A Bike challenge?

DH is a copper and says you get more abuse for trying to prevent crime than for arresting known problematic customers. He works in a city centre where 89% of crimes (I made that figure up btw) are people stealing purses out of handbags in Primark. They walk through Primark a few times a day and have a quiet word with people who have open handbags/purses on display. DH is regularly told to f off and stop interfering whilst doing this. He says it almost makes the amble through cut price polyester and vile handbags unpleasurable.

Op you're making out as if the police were somehow out to get you.

They hardly took you back to the cells and roughed you up with their numbers covered up did they? They stopped their bikes and offered done friendly advice!

And this is from someone who is usually very cynical about the police!

Most people are good, not evil.

We all decide our own risk levels. I don't see why the police shouldn't warn people (you could have said I am the UK leading expert in martial arts and often see off thugs I suppose) but you certainly have to cease going down the lane. Luckily we all have free choice as to the risk levels we take.

The person who gave the hitchhiker a lift -no you aren't prohibited from doing it again. Your family can't decide that for you. it's up to you. It might be a risk level you're prepared to accept.

I hit a policeman who snuck up behind me and startled me once when I was walking home at about 10pm or so as a teen. I didn't know it was a policeman, I just heard footsteps turn out of an alley I'd just passed and then heard a deep voice addressing me as 'young lady...' which was probably freakier than the footsteps. He was actually surprisingly nice about it and said it was good I was alert and aware of my surroundings but I should be careful about being alone at night. I wasn't offended and it didn't stop me walking alone at night, but I do wonder what if it hadn't been a pair of coppers.

(his patrol partner was no use - she laughed at him).

You don't actually know it was because you are a woman. They could have said the same to a man.

When I was a student I used to walk home alone after dark. I wasn't happy but my friends convinced me I was daft and nothing would happen. Then my housemate got attacked by a rapist on the same walk home. It later emerged that it was a serial rapist but she was the first to report it, although not the first victim. These days I'm much more careful about walking alone after dark. I still do it just not secluded routes.

I also lock my house and my car even though it wouldn't be my fault if someone stole from me. I don't step onto a zebra crossing with a car speeding towards it even though it wouldn't be my fault if it didn't stop. I think knowing it wasn't my fault would be little consolation after the event.

It's a sad fact of life there are bad people and we all need to take steps to protect ourselves from them. Unless you do go around leaving cars and home unlocked of course...

Yabu. Of course we should all be able to walk where & when we want but that is not realistic.
If you take away risks,you are less likely to be a target. How many times have rapes,attacks & murders happened in deserted cut throughs? When you see it on the news or in the paper I do think 'why on earth put yourself at such risk??'
I have done it when I was young & foolish,life is too precious to save 10 minutes on a walk through a potentially deserted dangerous place & the fact the police alerted you that it was not ideal should set off warning alarm bells,not how very dare they ones!!

YANBU. If you had been a man they wouldn't have said anything. They just feel the need to try and protect you because you are but a feeble woman.

Some posters on here are foolish and want to be rescued and "saved" by men. Some women manage rather well without submission.

I'd be amazed I heard of the police stopping to tell a man on his way home with his shopping at 11 o'clock that he should be careful walking on his own, and I think posters who are suggesting that it wasn't because the op is a woman are being disingenuous.
And why is that, given that, as others have pointed out, men are more likely to be the victims of street violence than women?

You remind me a bit of some of the militant cyclists I know, who are utterly determined that it's their right of way somewhere. And they're right, it is, and the car driver's are in the wrong. It doesn't mean that there isn't going to be an accident, and that the cyclist isn't going to come off worst. Nobody will ever say that it's the cyclist's fault that they were hit, but regardless, they are the ones who are badly injured. No, they shouldn't have to take extra care in the first place, because everyone should be given each other equal rights on the road. But in reality, that doesn't happen, and when the consequences are worse for one party, it only makes sense to take modify one's behaviour. It's the situation that we should be angry at - the fact that it is dangerous to walk somewhere, or that car drivers don't give equal rights to cyclists, as in my example - and not the people who give well-meaning advice. It would be nice if we lived in a society where people could walk wherever they wanted, and whatever time of day, and not be at risk. But what's so wrong about someone reminding you that we don't, and that a certain place might be extra risk? Be angry at the fact that that is the case, by all means, but not at the policemen. Warning people is not the same thing as saying that it's their fault if something happens. It's still the fault of the rapist, mugger, or whoever else. Absolutely. I'd still want to know if it might be an area that has had attacks.

Surely OP you know YABU. To be walking alone, through a deserted cut through, at 11pm at night is completely bonkers whether you are make or female . Now where did I put my gavel :o?

YABU and a bit obtuse. The police offered you advice. They didn't detain you, suggest you were doing anything wrong, tell you not to walk that way again or anything of that nature. They offered you advice which it is your perogative to ignore.

There has been a big drive in recent years towards making people feel safer - community safety units being set up etc. The police recognise that visible presence is reassuring and helps deter casual crime.

I genuinely don't understand why anyone would take offence at passing officers highlighting a possible safety issue, let alone suggest that they were implying that she was doing something wrong. If that had been me then I would have thanked them and given them a brief explanation as to why I am probably a little better equipped to defend myself than some people, and carry on. If they flagged up a specific risk - attacks in the area, someone seen acting suspiciously etc - I would probably change my route.

I don't think we should live our lives as though we are about to be attacked at any momen, but it is sheer arrogance to think that it can never happen and take no sensible precautions in some situations. My dojo has some extremely high-ranking martial artists - all of them bang on at some length on a regular basis about taking normal, easy precautions and never thinking you are above something happening to you.

I can kind of see the OP's point. It does annoy me this culture of it being the victim's fault - it was 11pm, not that late, she has the right to walk that way. But then if the cops were patrolling, perhaps they had reason to. I do wonder if they would've bothered if it had been a man.

I used to work in a cinema in Walthamstow that was open until 11pm. I had no choice but to walk home as I didn't drive and there was no public transport around town at that time. Luckily my house was near a police station so I was walking in the general direction of the police, but I never felt in danger - and this was in East London when I was 19/20. Not sure of the point of this anecdote, but there you go. Perhaps I just generally feel we should be able to walk where we want without fear - because much of the time the fear isn't justified.

It might be worth posting this in feminism too, and see if the discussion goes a different way.

I presume the same women that yearn safety advice from big strong men are the same women who wait for builders to screech;
"Cheer up love, it might never happen".

How wonderful for you all. But think about this, next time a woman is raped how about we don't blame her for walking on the pavement, but we instead blame the man who couldn't control himself before sexually assaulting her. I'm sick to my back teeth of reading WOMEN blaming WOMEN for being raped. The Op is entitled to walk wherever the fuck she likes at whatever time she wants to and doesn't need two (Male police officers?) telling her otherwise.

Walking on your own at night through a deserted cut-through is very dangerous

You are guaranteed to stand in dog poo

YANBU
you are an adult and able to assess risk for yourself.

Part of their patrol duties should be identifying potential victims and giving crime prevention advice. So if that cut through is identified through analysis as a crime hotspot then they should be warning people. There should also be other strategies though if an alley way is a problem area such as engaging with council to get better lighting/CCTV etc.

We have a cut through on my patch which historically is where a lot of our personal robberies occur (muggings) It goes under the railway and you periodically get gangs of youths hanging out round there. The police and council have tried to get the route shut now due to the crime that occurs but the Ramblers Association have prevented it. Now I am all for freedom but this is an inner city where I wouldn't want to be rambling through