Val - we live in one of the safest neighborhoods in our city when it comes to crime rate statistics. Last year an older man tried to lure two neighbor children - 8 and 10 - into his car right on our cul-de-sac as they were walking a few hundred feet to their home. Had the mother not walked out of her house, who knows what would have happened to them. We'd seen the man parked in the neighborhood the day before but thought nothing of it. It was a nice, clean car, and he looked like a grandpa. He wasn't wearing a hat that said predator that would make alarm bells go off.
Satistics may predict probability, but if it happens to your kid, it's 100% and can't be fixed. I'm not willing to bet my kid's need for independence on that kind of risk.
