Crimes are preceded by surveillance. It might be an elaborate set up with a team, or it may be as simple as a thug watching you walk to your car. If he determines you look like an easy victim, he will follow you and attack. It could be a mugging, carjacking, or even rape or abduction.
Surveillance might be done by a stalker who is an ex-lover or complete stranger. It could be someone hired to watch you and find out where you are going and what you are doing.
If you think you are being followed, a surveillance detection route (SDR) can confirm it for you. If you have read Tom Clancy, Brad Thor, or similar authors of action books, you are probably already familiar with the term.
Jason Hanson writes about them in his book Spy Secrets That Can Save Your Life. Here is a video I made based on Jason’s book when I was down in his neck of the woods, Cedar City, UT.
You can do a quick SDR made up on the spot, or you can plan one out. The key is to make sure your SDR looks normal so anyone following won’t get suspicious. Regardless if it is planned out, or you are making it up as you go along, you want to make the route natural and a route that a person wouldn’t normally go in that sequence. You don’t want to go to places you would never actually go to, and you want time spent at each location to be a normal visit.
If you, or your protection team, sees the same person throughout the day, or throughout the SDR, at the same places at the same times you are there, it is pretty clear someone is following you.
We used to do a simple SDR by making four right turns. It puts you back where you started. If someone was following you with these four turns, you know the person is following you. However, with this technique, they will probably know you burned them.
A simple SDR when out shopping would be to go to a certain set of stores, or certain departments in a store and see if someone does the same. It would be odd for someone to have the exact same pattern of looking if you for instances went to a shoe store, then the sporting goods store, and then a novelty store and then a place for lunch and someone was at each of those same locations at the same time.
If you run a SDR and determine someone is following you, you can then take appropriate action. This may include calling 911, getting a security guard to help you, or any other measure to keep yourself safe.