Local Dangers

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I'm just curious about the dangers in your current environment.

I live Urban Alberta Canada which means that there aren't a lot of wildlife dangers present. We have no poisonous insects, snakes or spiders living here and although there are black bears and the occasional cougar in this area of the world, they tend to live out in the bushes and stay very far from the city.

As far as other dangers - The most dangerous part of town would probably be just north of Downtown and it really isn't that dangerous compared to any real slums in the world. Maybe the most dangerous thing in my surroundings would be the smog produced by our local Petrocan factory.

 

The biggest local danger here would be the drivers. This being a college town, people bring their driving habits from home with them. So, one city, 50+ driving styles. Get an impatient Northerner behind a laid back Southerner, and you've got a wreck just waiting to happen.

 

We used to have one of the most dangerous highways in the US where I'm at. Students would get drunk at one university and drive 7 miles down a highway and continue at the other one... Same thing happened the other way around. A LOT of drunk drivers= a lot of accidents.

 

Alcohol.

 

My ex -- she lives waaayyy too close (about 20 miles).

 

Ditto that for me, T2 -- except mine lives about 140 km away. Still too close.

I live in Dragonfly's city, and I mostly agree with her assessment. The downtown area she refers to as dangerous is only dangerous at night or if you are alone and drunk. There's no reason for anyone to go there anyhow.

I would have to say that the roads are dangerous, though. Too many impatient and unskilled drivers with bad attitudes. Couple that with poorly planned traffic design and bad roads and you have a recipe for disaster.

 

Even though I live in a large urban area, we still have wildlife problems. To the east, we have mountains with bears, wolves, and moose...and to the west; we have mountains that are filled with Mountain Lions.

We have a lot of diamondback rattlesnakes in the summer, and there are black widows and brown recluses all over the state.

And then there are the drivers... People die in car crashes along Hwy 6 all the time. Hwy 6 is one of Utah's deadliest roads but I-80 is pretty bad too...high cross-winds + snow and ice + major trucking route = frequent crashes.

One thing that 99% of people don't realize that that they live close to a company that has hazardous materials on site. If the S*** hit the fan at my work, and a large quantity of toxic gas was released, we would have to evacuate a very large area...which would include several thousand people.

 

Ah yes, another potential danger I didn't previously mention: there's a functioning nuclear reactor at the University. That thing loses containment, the city's toast. My grandfather used to work in the nuclear science department, and had to wear a button that reacted to nuclear radiation to determine what the employees were being exposed to.

Oddly enough, I really didn't consider wildlife dangers. We have our share of widow and recluse spiders, as well as the eastern rattlesnake. I have on more than one occasion walked right past a rattler. I've never had one consider me a threat though, so the snake goes its way and I go mine.
Moccasins, however, are another story entirely. They're poisonous and aggressive. If you don't kill it quickly enough, the suckers will chase you down to bite you. Hate those things.

 

Our biggest natural hazzard is Deer. There are a number of Car vs Deer crashes every year. Other than that we get the occasional Blizzard in the winter...

The biggest danger is the roads. The idiot across the road from me has had his liscence taken away after two alcohol related accidents, but he still drives. I just hope he doesn't kill anyone important.

Also the main intersection in town is not flush, and is someone parks too close to the corner, it impairs visibility into the intersection. There have been a few times where we were already in traffic before we could see if anything was coming!

 

Probably boredom.

Seriously though, the only thing I can think of are the boy racers - speeding around on crappy cars making loud BAZOOM noises because they purposefully neglect muzzlers. I can't think of anything NZ-specific, though. Perhaps sheep zombies.

 

Spiders Dm, spiders and kiwis. You see one of those freaky birds coming at you, you run. I would

 

Well, while spiders are pretty scary, they're more of an Aussie thing. Kiwis are completely nocturnal and perfectly harmless - you pretty much only see them in protected zoos anyway. They're also really, really cute. Although once upon a time in the #sorcerers chatroom, me and Rotku managed to convince everyone that a Kiwi gourged someone's eyes out. Good times.

New Zealand is actually famed for having few harmful critters. There's no bears, lions, tigers, wolves, snakes, or cockroaches (well, there *are* cockroaches, but I never see them). It actually caused a sensation when a snake was found in Wellington about ten years ago - it smuggled itself on a ship, IIRC. As a result, NZ's flora and fauna are extremely unique, because there are no natural predators. That is also why Kiwi birds are so fat and don't have wings - they don't need to fly because there's nothing to chase them around.

Sounds like an animal paradise...

 

Yeah, should go there one day, then again, I'd have to visit relatives, who might be inclined to pummel me, just for fun. Or get me stinking drunk again. It'd be fun enough I guess.

Footie. Yeah, that's a local danger in NZ. Watch out for those fingers. Yikes. Nothing to worry if you're not on the field though and I don't know anything about that...But the players I met were a rough enough lot. Wouldn't want to mess with them. Nice blokes, but rough in a way that really makes you want to avoid stepping on their toes.

 

no natural dangers of any kind (no poison or large animals) and no earthquake or storm or anything

the most talked about danger is the "gang war" (a small one internationally but for some of us it is pretty rad) there have been like 20 shootings the last 2 months or so and i think 1 civilian died.

otherwise it would be drivers, or people on mopeds - they drive like they're ****ing insane

 

eastern D-backs, brown recluse & black widow spiders, moccasins, the occasional bear & 2 nuclear reactors about 10 miles away.
North carolina has 5 nuclear reactors & there are applications approved(if i'm not mistaken) to build 2 more to be on-line by 2014.

 

Boredom, wasps and drivers. The geese used to be a big problem but that seems to be under control now.

 

The sea. That's what you get for creating a nation that's a few meters beneath sea level.

 

Politics. It should be banned.

 

I don't think there are any real dangers in Edinburgh. Probably the worst one is gangs of drunk neds on a Saturday night. They can be pretty vicious though.

You have my full support!

 

The late-night queues to a umm...there isn't probably even a word for it...it's this small booth, right, which sells hot-dogs, bigger than a hot-dog stand, but I think you get the idea. Yeah. The queues can be pretty deadly.

Then there's moose: