Use a low side kick just below the knee joint instead, and hit perpendicular to the way the knee hinges. That’s highly effective at doing bad things to knee tendons. And if you do the shin scrape/foot stomp part, keep standing on their foot afterward. Extra points if you then use your own knee as leverage to hyperextend their trapped leg and tip them over.

Source: I’ve actually used that in a street situation and it works well. It doesn’t require great precision. And when I ran off, the attacker was unable to chase me.