Back when I walked my dog at the last place I lived, I used to take the same loop around the local high school a few blocks away, then back home. I would always turn the flashlight on when crossing the street and let it swing in my hand, even though it's a quiet town, because you never know when someone is not going to be driving responsibly. There were a couple of spots on this circuit where there are differently-sized fields where I would briefly stop and play with observing the beam quality with whatever I was carrying that evening. There is a spot where I would step about twenty yards onto the school grounds, past the end of the nearby bleachers, and then illuminate the bleachers across the field. One night, as I did this with an M61 in an SF host, I was vaguely aware of some 'light pollution' coming from the far bleacher's stairwells, which annoyed me, so I turned my flashlight off. It was red light. Odd. It took me a couple of seconds to fully realize that the wooden bleachers were on fire (arson), and apparently no one was aware of it yet, even though this is in the middle of town. Even after I called it in, I didn't notice any passersby for awhile. The way the street was sloped, I could have walked right by the then-nascent fire looking straight ahead without noticing it. If I hadn't been a flashlight freak, and didn't habitually light up those bleachers on a fairly regular basis, the fire could have continued to burn unnoticed for quite some time. They sent some investigators over to my place for an interview (two weeks later!), and I felt a little self-conscious describing why I discovered the fire, but my point is, it's not only okay to carry a flashlight all the time, it's okay to reconnoiter blind spots, also. I also like to 'scan' parks at night. You just never know what might turn up. I don't move very fast these days, and I like to have some advance warning of possibly impending events.