If a large amount of the population was infected with rabies or some similar disease that would cause insanity & unprovoked attacks on basically anything that moves?
I think it really depends on where you are when it hits, how soon you find out, if you're near weapons (and if you are, obviously your marxmanship will come into play), how quick you can run away from zombies and hotwire a vehicle, ability to find uninfected food/water. It would be a true survival-of-the-fittest test, rivaled only by other extremes like alien invasion, the earth being struck by an enormous comet, or pretty much anything else that would rip society at the seams in a particular country or continent or even on a global level.
Or I guess some people would haul up in a sealed basement or something and wait out the epidemic. Doesn't seem very proactive though, does it?
Personally, as long as I had enough time to get my hands on a shotgun for close range assault & some sort of handgun or rifle for longer range (preferably some sort of automatic assault rifle), I would probably be alright unless I somehow attracted a real swarm of them. Even then maybe I could survive if I had enough shotgun rounds or some sorta car to run over a few & get the fuck outta there xD