When not to doze
It is not uncommon for people being driven to and from work to either doze off or work. Since part of the function of having a driver is to allow the person being driven to be either more relaxed or more fruitful, this may, on the surface, seem perfectly reasonable. And, if you as the person being driven, face no risk, this is, in fact, reasonable.
However, if you, as the person being driven, are at risk, it is not quite so reasonable to sit back and relax. The reason for this is that, driver or not, and protective agents or not, 80 percent of attacks take place during the morning commute, and 80 percent of these take place near the residence or hotel. In order for there to be a successful attack, a lot of surveillance needs to take place, and our goal is to detect this surveillance and induce the potential attacker to choose someone else.
Why do you, who have a protective services staff care? Because it is your life! If you are kidnapped or killed, and you could have avoided the incident by participating, you will pay dearly for your indifference.
OK, so you want to be a participant. What should you be looking for? Well, if you are an e-Journal reader you are probably smarter than the average bear, and can ask yourself what you would do if you were a bad guy, and where you would do it.
Let’s start with where. For a start, you need to have some place from which you can observe without being observed yourself, which means someplace where you can fit in without being noticed. As you drive the hopefully varying routes from home to office, and to any of the other places you normally frequent, ask yourself where you would station yourself to observe your car without being noticed. Then see if you see the same people in these places. Either in the same places at different times, or in different places.
Next you have to figure out the places that you absolutely have to go to get from home and office and back, and which of these would be appropriate for an attack. Again, your ideas will probably be the same as the bad guy’s.
Once you identify these, you have identified the places where you need to be awake, because these are the places where bad things are most likely to happen to you.
Do we expect you to become a protective specialist? No, but survivors of incidents are most often those who have taken an active interest in their own survival, and are aware of what is going on around them, particularly near where they are living. If you see something that seems suspicious, you can tell your protective staff and make sure they take the appropriate action.
