Basic car safety tips

Staying alert while entering and exiting your car

More women's self-defense tips: Here are two recent articles which hopefully will show the need of some basic awareness around your car. The first one is also yet another example of the bad (dangerous really) habit of walking around with earphones on at certain times and places.

College student assaulted

From California contracostatimes.com wrote about an 18-year-old female student who was assaulted in a parking structure.

The young woman was attacked at 6:45 p.m. while walking up to her car. The student was reportedly listening to an MP3 player. A spokesman with the college police said the perpetrator grabbed the woman as she clicked her remote control to unlock her vehicle.

Luckily, the El Camino College (in Torrance) student was able to fight off the attacker who grabbed her from behind by screaming and giving the attacker and elbow.

Just a brief stop at the store...

In Theodore, Alabama, a woman who was selling peanuts said she briefly ran into a store to get some more supplies, according to myfoxgulfcoast.com. When she jumped back into the car, she could feel a knife to her stomach.

The man - who had gotten into her unlocked car - made her drive down a side road, before the woman decided to fight back. Even though she was cut to the hand, she managed to get the attacker out of the vehicle.

The woman said the robber took off with her purse and seven dollars.

Awareness and exercising, update

The need of being aware while jogging

In our last blog post we talked in quite a bit of length about the need of staying alert while jogging or exercising. We showed some examples, and also tried to point out the dangers of "closing yourself out from reality" with music.

Today we will follow up on that, with another couple of articles you might want to have a look at.

A humorous look a serious problem

In this great article from scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com Ewan Morrison has a very funny (but still highly serious) take on people walking around like zombie creatures in a scene from Invasion Of The Body Snatchers.

"Like the snatched, podders are less aware of their own movements and find it hard to negotiate space between themselves and other people. In supermarkets they (...) freak out when suddenly they sense you beside them," he goes on to observe.

A really funny bit is when he mentioned a guy pi***** on himself while caught singing to a song on his iPod in a men's washroom - hilarious!

OK, so what's the serious part to all this madness, you might ask. Well apart from people behaving like complete morons, you have the "side-effect" of setting yourself up as the perfect sitting duck - just waiting to become a target for the next criminal who happens to come your way.

Another attempted abduction

Myfoxcleveland.com recently had an brief, descriptive article about a man who was arrested for the attempted abduction of a 38-year-old woman while she was jogging.

The incident allegedly occurred July 19, when the man tried to grab the woman in Newbury, Ohio. Police said the suspect drove drove past the woman. He then reportedly stopped his car and jogged near the intended victim.

The woman was wearing earphones, so she did not hear what the man was saying to her initially. When she stopped and removed the earphones she realised the man said things of a sexual nature. He then allegedly held the woman by the shoulder and touched her breast.

The woman was able to break free and ran screaming to a nearby home. The man ran back to his vehicle and drove off.

So there you have it, a women's self-defense tip: Consider giving up the habit of running with music blasting on your earphones ... for your own safety!

Need more examples? There are hundreds at I Hear You Say Women Can't Defend Themselves!