I've handled a lot of wild garters and they all hated me xD
Not one ever tried to bite, me though, so I figure that's a good sign in some way or another.

We get a lot of injured/unhealthy garters around here because we're right in the middle of the city, but also near a nature preserve on a butte. We didn't get them at my old house because we were basically on an island of concrete and there was no way for garters to get there alive. But at my grandma's, where there's lots of construction and predatory animals (cats, dogs, raccoons, rats, possums) as well as lawn mowers and cars, we used to find a lot of small injured ones in our yard. The one with the deformity was the worst I ever saw. I think they also like our yard for the earthworms and all the places to hide xD

I knew a guy who got bit on the nose by a wild garter. They had caught it and kept it (I think it was near the coast) and it managed to bite him. I thought it was hilarious.