Avoid sports fans. The louder, more enthusiastic, and color coded the crowd the wider the berth you give them.

People who get their thrills vicariously, and who feel the need to demonstrate unilateral and unrequited affiliation with a group of overpaid and mercenary free agents through the wearing of team colors, are inherently unstable.

The good news is that sports riots, unlike rioting caused by poverty and hopelessness, are predictable in that their riots are near in time and space to a sporting event of home town of one of the teams.

Stay out of towns with major events. Stay out from around the sporting venue. Monitor the sound of the crowd for excitement, urgency, and level of drunkenness. When these measures start to form interlocking rising waves, with one rise feeding the other it is time, past time, to leave.

Fights will often start and build near alcohol outlets, bars, and nightclubs. Know which streets are considered the 'strip' or party area. Moving up or down, along, the strip will provide little improvement. Moving a few blocks perpendicular to the strip will often see a large difference in drunken craziness.

In my experience riots don't just pop up. They build slowly and give a lot of warning to anyone who stays aware and alert. Sporting event provide days, weeks, of warning. The Rodney King , LA, riots were pretty much expected by everyone in the area weeks before the verdict.

But even assuming you miss the preliminaries, and the warning signs it has to be noted that riots are a whole lot of commotion in a small place. Typically if you walk a few blocks in the right direction the riots are little more than a noise in the distance.