Going out after dark can mean taking one's life in one's hands.

IN such a context, the phrase 'taking one's life in one's hands' means exercising one's last right of self-determination: the right to kill onself.

He felt that something was waiting out there, that to venture beyond the lights' pale embrace for whatever reason - necessity, whim or duty - was to take one's life in one's hands.

"Going out for a meal on a Saturday evening, even if there were any good places - that would apply to the Scottish side of the border as well - would involve taking one's life in one's hands."