I had similar thoughts. I live on the west coast and feel so safe that I don't even lock the front door to my house, ever. I wonder if OP feels safe enough to always have their front door unlocked.
I wonder how much people think the typical flimsy locks on a residential door will actual stop someone who goes up to the door with the intention of entering. It would almost require someone to want to enter but iff the door was unlocked, which seems like a poor strategy for a burglar.
Locks won't stop somebody who wants to get inside no matter what. They will stop somebody who would not mind casing the house, waiting till it's empty, entering without attracting any attention and walking out with loot, which is a "safer" crime than knocking down the door or breaking a window. Breaking and entering is a crime by itself, carries minimum sentence in some jurisdictions. As I understand it's because it's hard to convict somebody who walked in, took stuff and sold it for anything other than trespassing. How do you prove they stole the missing items unless you catch them in the act or have video surveillance inside?
If people lock their doors all the time, burglars probably prefer to avoid the houses with unlocked doors (because they are more likely to be occupied houses).
> Whether or not you lock your door has more to do with cultural attitudes towards risk
> People in rural areas don’t lock their doors for the same reason they don’t wear seatbelts and drive drunk everywhere. They just don’t care.
Do you think the attitude towards risk is because they truly don't care about having their belongings stolen, or because they know there is less risk of that happening? Having lived in a rural area and in a few cities, my experience is the latter. No one wants to be robbed.
Also, people in rural areas driving drunk is mostly due to lack of transportation options. I'm certainly not condoning it, but Uber doesn't travel out into the sticks and there is no bus or train to hop on.
> Also, people in rural areas driving drunk is mostly due to lack of transportation options. I'm certainly not condoning it, but Uber doesn't travel out into the sticks and there is no bus or train to hop on.
I don’t think that refutes their point that they don’t care. Having come from a rural area myself, the decision was to drink at home or a friends I was staying over at rather than drive drunk. They don’t care about the consequences compared to doing what they want
> They don’t care about the consequences compared to doing what they want
I also come from a rural area and I think you're missing some detail in the individual calculus. The chance of negative consequences drop so precipitously in some areas that, coupled with poor transportation options, it becomes primarily an individual risk in their eyes. They don't see a big issue with being over the limit when it's a road they drive everyday and encountering even a single vehicle on the way back is rare. It's not a lack of caring, it's just a different calculation.
I've never drove drunk (or even buzzed) and I'm not defending the practice, just trying to explain their point of view.
They're suggesting caring less is the primary reason for rural people driving drunk. The primary reason is a lack of transportation options. Caring less is a byproduct of that, not the reason they do it in the first place.
I see how you can interpret his comment that way, but I view it differently with the inclusion of cultural attitudes. The fact that some people started doing it because of lack of transportation made it into a cultural value.
Being called a pussy for instance for not wanting to drive while smashed isn’t a result of a lack of transportation.
> Do you think the attitude towards risk is because they truly don't care about having their belongings stolen, or because they know there is less risk of that happening?
Neither, they just take fewer mitigations in response to the same level of risk because of cultural habits.
America in general (both rural and urban) has a very high crime rate by developed world standards. I grew up in <redacted> which has a lower crime rate than 99% of America, including the parts where people brag about how it's so safe that no one locks their doors, and everyone locks the doors to their houses and cars anyway, because that's just the cultural norm.
I’m in a rural area. I wear my seatbelt, along with everyone else I know. I don’t even drink. The only people I’ve ever known that have driven drunk were dumb teenagers. I lock my door, but I not only kept my high school car unlocked - I left the keys in it.
For two years I did that, and the only time it was “stolen” was when my friends skipped class, used it to drive to the bakery for some doughnuts, and deliberately parked it elsewhere as a prank. Do you really think that’s how it would have worked out in any major city?
I remember it being major news when a few houses were burgled when I was a kid.
Now, the biggest town in the county? Crime happens there all the time. It’s only 20,000 people but a lot of them are…lower rung.
I think that’s the real difference. When I walk in a major city or even that town, crime might happen to me. In the 20 mile radius around my house it’s very unlikely, and I very rarely see a cop unlike in NYC.
You are less likely to be murdered in NYC than the average rural area. I don't know where you live and it's possible that your rural area is safer than average, but in general the myth that so many smug rural Americans subscribe to that the typical rural area is safer than big bad New York City is just totally, completely wrong.
Right, but that was when I was a kid. I'm 34 now and I don't recall hearing of any other burglaries in that area. Just as one neighborhood in NYC can't be compared to another, you can't mix all rural areas in to one "typical" zone.
>for the same reason they don’t wear seatbelts and drive drunk everywhere. They just don’t care.
This doesn't match my experience living in a rural area. Most of the people I knew either avoided drinking (your WASP) or drank with their neighbors (your redneck.)
