How to keep safe on public transit
In all the other spare time I have when I'm not reporting or writing for this blog (or earning a living), I'm a community policing CAPS beat facilitator.
At our January beat meeting, Chicago Police Lt. John Wittenburg, Tactical Coordinator for the Police Public Transit Unit, gave a short presentation on keeping safe on trains an buses. He said the biggest CTA crime problem is pickpocketing and thefts. He said if you need to report crime while on a train car give the dispatcher these pertinent pieces of info: train line (ie., Red, Blue); direction of travel; car number; location (ie., pulling into Belmont).
He also left these handy-dandy cards with safety tips. Download pdf file below.
Back in the day, i worked in evergreen park and would take a bus from work to the 95th street redline staion at between 10 PM and midnight. Where i would wait for the train. I found that stting As close to the driver was best, and i always had my crazy song ready to go, it went something like this: " i udeeeeellooooosed to hadddllladdlle and odelow banjodelo i played upon my Kneeedle-eedle-eeee" with crazy knee slapping jestures stuff. I only ever had to sing it once, but it definitely put off that person who had to stand way to close to me on the empty platform. of course, keeping your keys splayed thru your fingers like mini knives when you're out late is a good way to defend an attack as well.
Posted by: eighmie | February 24, 2007 at 02:24 AM
keep the bus or train schedule in your pocket so you can figure out how much time until the next one arrives. The bus Schedules are available online so you can print them. You can get train timetables from the CTA office. I never leave without the schedule.
Posted by: Jeff Zoline | March 02, 2007 at 03:15 AM
like the buses are ever on time. What good is a schedule gonna do?
Posted by: Austin | March 02, 2007 at 10:19 PM