alt Hacker NewsI've got to ask. Is this kind of violent crime common or perceived as common in the US? If a stranger asked me for a ride home here my first thought wouldn't be that they want to attack me.
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I think, due to a lot of reasons including skewed media reporting, a lot of uncommon things are perceived as common in the US, and vice versa.
Maybe this video[1] helps you understand this better: a lot of Americans live in constant fear. They live in one of the safest countries on Earth, but if you see the discourse around safety there, you would think that USA is a big cartel neighborhood.
Maybe the 24 hours news cycle is responsible for that, I don't know. It's pretty weird, though. And I say that as someone who has lived in unsafe neighborhoods in my native country.
Depends on the area. I grew up in a bad neighborhood and everyone was grifting. If you gave a random stranger a ride you would get to take a tour of the roughest places in your city and maybe a "friend" that sees you as a free taxi driver. It was rarely malicious, mostly just people were poor and didn't have access to transportation. But their friends and family can sometimes be pretty dang nasty.
This is called being a "Soft Touch."
The US has a pervasive culture of fear. It's a big part of why guns are so popular.
I have had countless discussions with americans about guns that go along the lines of "What happens if (insert extremely rare violent incident) happens?" and they all literally seem unable to comprehend that these are just not things I even think about at all, and they really shouldn't either given how extremely rare they all are.
But a huge percentage of the population does worry about being victimised constantly.
It is the main reason that despite the obvious financial benefits and my love for certain landscapes/areas of the US I've never had the slightest desire to move there.