SUBWAY SAFETY STRAP-HANGER
Bx. rider turns into a lock ’n’ rail star
She’s locked into this subway safety hack.
A Bronx straphanger has gone viral on TikTok for her extreme advice on how to stay safe when riding the subway — by strapping herself to the nearest platform pole.
Wanda Vela shared the radical tip on Monday, posting a video that showed her securing herself to a pole with a bike lock as she waited for a train to arrive.
“It’s bad out here. People want to push people into trains — that ain’t gonna happen to me,” Vela said.
She was then filmed putting the bike lock around her waist and the platform pole before locking it with a key.
“With the chain I relax more because I know no one is going to come from behind and push me at all,” the grandmother explained.
She insisted she only unlocks the bike chain when the train comes to a stop alongside the platform.
“We need more cops around. But until I start seeing them, I’ll do this. It makes me feel like nobody can throw me on the tracks. I don’t care if they snatch my purse, I just don’t want to lose my life,” Vela said.
The video has already been viewed more than 2 million times on TikTok. It is unclear if Vela is being tongue-in-cheek. but many New Yorkers found the unorthodox safety advice relatable.
“I know some ppl take this as a joke… but if you take the train, this is a REAL fear,” one viewer commented on the clip.
“I hold on to the pole anytime the train is coming. She’s not exaggerating the dangers,” another person said.
It comes after several straphangers were pushed onto the tracks across the Big Apple last month amid a rise in subway crime.
One of the latest involved a robber shoving a 36-year-old woman in the 42nd Street Times Square station before good Samaritans rushed in to rescue her.