Philadelphia Safety

SAFETY TIPS

Courtesy of Vidgam

ARE YOU A POTENTIAL VICTIM?
No one wants to be a victim, but life's daily activities put us all in situations where we could become a victum. The business person going to or coming from work or in a strange city for a business meeting, the senior citizen taking a morning stroll or the jogger running around the block- - average people in average situations. Whether you are shopping, going out for an evening on the town, walking across the campus, taking a walk in the local park, riding your bicyle, or just answering the doorbell put you in a situation where you can become a potential victim. It isn't hard to figure out that you or someone you know is going to be a victim - and soon. Just look in local newspaper or review the statistics. It can happen to you and probably will sooner or later.

You do have several options.
(1) You can ignore all the facts and go on with your daily life thinking that it could never happen to you.
(2) You could live in complete fear and spend a lot of your time worrying about the possibility of a criminal assault.
(3) You can prepare yourself for the possibility of becoming a victim by purchasing a self-protection device, learning how to use it properly, and continue living a normal life. After all considerations, this really the only option that makes any sense.

We cannot always count on outside help from the already overly busy police departments. Even if you are involved in a situation where you have someone else call for you, ever increasing response times often find the police only arriving in time to call for an ambulance or fill out paper work. It's a fact of life! Law enforcement divisions cannot respond immediately to every call for assistance. And recent court decisions have taken the position that the police have no obligation to protect an individual.

Workplace Violence
One in six violent crimes occurs in the workplace, according to Department of Justice study recently released. (Police and Security News - Sept. 1994)
The Departments Bureau of Justice Statistics(BJS) said an estimated 7 percent of all rapes, 8 percent of all robberies, and 16 percent of all assaults occur at work. The data are from an analysis for workplace crimes, from 1987 through 1992, gathered though the National Criminal Victimization Survey of U.S. households.
"The workplace is the scene of almost one million violent crimes every year", said acting BJS Director Lawerces A. Greenfeld. "About 10 percent- or 100,000 -of these violent crimes in the workplace involve offenders armed with handguns."
Of the approximately 3.2 million violent crimes and thefts in the workplace, about 500,000 victims lose an estimated 1.8 million workdays each year, and $55 million in lost wages, not including days covered by sick and annual leave, the study said.
Among the women who experience crime at work, 40 percent are attacked by a stranger, 35 percent by a casual acquaintance, 19 percent by a well-know acquaintance and 1 percent by a relative. About 5 percent are attacked by a husband, former husband, boyfriend, or former boyfriend.
Federal, state and local government workers, who make up about 8 percent of the total U.S. workforce, accounts for 30 percent of all workplace victims. "Several factors may be responsible for this over representation, including a potentially high risk of victimization for particular government occupations, such as public safety personnel," the report noted.
In addition to the violent crimes, there was an annual average of more than two million personal thefts in the workplace during the period, as well as more than 200,000 motor vehicle thefts.
More than half of all workplace victimization's were not reported to police. Among those not reporting, 40 percent said they believed the matter was minor or too personal, and 27 percent said they reported the incident to another official, such as company security.
Average annual numbers of workplace victimization's from 1987 through 1992.

Normal Human Response To Danger
When a person is exposed to severe stress, the body experiences a normal process referred to as Body Alarm Reaction, also called "Fight or Flight response.
The ONLY thing that can help overcome this response is proper training.
The most common reactions are:

Reduced hand-eye coordination
Loss of manual dexterity and fine motor skills
Loss of fine finger movements
Panic and indecisive
Complex training starts to breakdown
Unreliable mental track - How many attackers?
Tunnel vision - swivel head to compensate
Auditory exclusion - unable to hear loud noises, shouts, etc…
Muscle tightening - epinephrine (adrenaline) flooding
Time and space distortion - slow motion
Memory disturbance - out of sequence… black outs, size distortion

How you will react depends on several things, the most important is proper training, and the second is practice.

Buying a can of my pepper spray is a good idea, but unless you have proper training and practice in the use of the spray as well as awareness training, there is a chance you could be surprised and overcome by an attacker.

Lets hope this never happens, but if it does, it's not because my spray failed, but because you did.

Back To School Safety Tips

The summer has ended and a new school year begins. For some children it is a time to return to their classroom, renew old friendships and to meet new friends. For other students it means going to a different school, excited and eager to face a new time in their life or perhaps with some reservation.

As the children are heading back to school, during the early mornings roads become crowded with pedestrians, bikes and cars in the rush to work and school. It is important to help the children get to and from school safely, here are some tips:

Riding the Bus
School bus transportation is safe. In fact, buses are safer than cars! Even so, last year, approximately 26 students were killed and another 9,000 were injured in incidents involving school buses. More often than not, these deaths and injuries didn't occur in a crash, but as the pupils were entering and exiting the bus. Remember these safety tips:

* Have a safe place to wait for your bus, away from traffic and the street.
* Stay away from the bus until it comes to a complete stop and the driver signals you to enter.
* When being dropped off, exit the bus and walk ten giant steps away from the bus. Keep a safe distance between you and the bus. Also, remember that the bus driver can see you best when you are back away from the bus.
* Use the handrail to enter and exit the bus.
* Stay away from the bus until the driver gives his/her signal that it's okay to approach.
* Be aware of the street traffic around you. Drivers are required
to follow certain rules of the road concerning school buses, however, not all do. Protect yourself and watch out!

Walking and Biking to School
Even if you don't ride in a motor vehicle, you still have to protect yourself. Because of minimal supervision, young pedestrians face a wide variety of decisions making situations and dangers while walking to and from school.

Here are a few basic safety tips to follow:

* Mind all traffic signals and/or the crossing guard -- never cross the street against a light, even if you don't see any traffic coming.
* Walk your bike through intersections.
* Walk with a buddy.
* Wear reflective material...it makes you more visible to street traffic.

Riding in a Car
* You might have heard before that most traffic crashes occur close to home ... they do.
* Safety belts are the best form of protection passengers have in the event of a crash. They can lower your risk of injury by 45%.
* You are four times more likely to be seriously injured or killed if ejected from the vehicle in a crash.
* Everyone needs to be buckled up properly. That means older kids in seat belts, younger kids in booster seats and little kids in child safety seats.