Reconsider Safe
Safety is obviously a big concern for most people. Anyone who subscribes to a barefoot lifestyle has experienced that it's safe and that the benefits of going barefoot far outweigh the risks. Some shoes are even far less safe than going barefoot.
The ground is usually free of harmful things, especially indoors. While there are some infrequent dangerous objects, the risk of getting hurt is no more than the risk to your hands when ironing clothes, using a kitchen knife or closing a car door. Even though risks exist for hand injuries, people don't regularly wear protective gloves in their daily lives. You just have to pay attention and be careful when barefoot -- like with anything else. Anything that may cause significant harm to our feet can easily be seen and avoided.
Here's an example of the actual risk of a cut to a bare foot in a typical business:
A barefooter could cut their foot only IF a glass object breaks on the ground and IF employees don't clean it up well enough and IF the barefooter doesn't see the remaining broken piece and IF the barefooter steps in that exact area of the floor and IF the piece is big enough or situated in such a way to cut the skin and IF they actually step on it in such a way to cut the skin. That's a lot of IFs -- an arguably very low risk to bare feet.
Many shoes are no safer -- or are even much less safe -- than going barefoot. Flip flop sandals, with their open design, provide no protection against objects from above or other people's feet stepping on them. In fact, tennis star Serena Williams received cuts on both feet and a lacerated toe tendon from broken glass while wearing sandals in a restaurant in the summer of 2010.1 Even after that high-profile incident, no restauranteurs called for sandals to be prohibited for safety reasons. Shoes or sandals that are smooth on the bottom can pose a slipping hazard on smooth floors. The risk of slippage is even higher if the floor is wet. High heels, a staple of women's fashion, send more than 20,000 women to the hospital each year due to falls and sprained ankles,2 yet women are regularly allowed into stores and restaurants while wearing them as well.
Finally, human feet are very sensitive and flexible, which allows them to avoid injury in the first place. Our feet can instantaneously identify and mold away from a sharp object on the ground without putting significant amounts of weight in that area. In short, bare feet will not step onto sharp objects as forcefully as they would with shoes because our body's systems for avoiding threats will not allow it.
When it comes to risk and safety, many of us prefer to take our chances on our own two (bare) feet.
1. "Serena Williams details foot injury" USA Today, Sept. 2, 2010 (Link)
2. D.P. Manning and C. Jones, "High Heels and Polished Floors: The Ultimate Challenge in Research on Slip-Resistance," Safety Science 19, no. 1 (1995): 19.
