Somebody's following me!

Unless you work for an alphabet soup agency of the U.S. government (CIA, FBI, MIB), are a cop leaving work, a diamond merchant, a family-law attorney, or are being stalked, somebody probably isn't following you. Seriously, most of us aren't interesting enough to follow. Sorry to disappoint you.

But, some people are followed home for criminal purposes. I haven't found any hard statistics on the frequency of follow-home crimes. News reports of them seem to be fairly rare. Even so, they do happen, as in a recent case in Southern California.

Maybe you have a good reason to think you may be followed. Perhaps you fit into one of the groups mentioned above, or are having a business dispute with Moose, Guido & Sons Collection Agency. If so, there are some precautions you might want to take.

First, vary your route home from work. Take a different off ramp or main thoroughfare. Randomly change the time you leave work if you can. Even if you don't have a reason to think somebody's following you, stay aware of your surroundings. It's called situational awareness (SA). An added benefit of maintaining a high situational awareness is that you're less likely to get involved in an accident.

Since you've maintained a high SA, you notice that the same nondescript, black SUV has been behind you for the last five miles or so. How do you figure out if you're being followed or are just being paranoid? You can try some counter-surveillance driving. Make a number of random turns that make no sense if you're headed for a specific destination, like in the video. Just make sure you don't end up stuck in a cul-de-sac.



If the car is still behind you, yes, you're being followed. And the people following you either don't care that you know or aren't very bright. Either way, you don't want to go straight home or stop to have a chat with them. Continue driving and call 911 to explain the situation. Arrange to meet the cops at a public place and keep driving around until they get there and can meet you. With any luck, they'll be able to have that chat with the reps from Moose, Guido & Sons.