What to Do If You Think You Are Being Followed
The feeling that someone is following you is a scary thing. (Remember the post about the girl walking a few blocks to see her friend?) Being trained in hand to hand combat training, I can tell you that even I dislike the feeling of the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. I am thankful, however, that we all have built in Spidey Senses to help us determine if we are in danger. Here are some tips for what to do if you think you are being followed.
If you are in your vehicle and you sense a car is following you, the best plan of action is to completely reverse your direction. Accelerating will only cause you to be followed at a faster rate of speed. Instead, flip a U-turn. If you are indeed being followed, your actions are difficult for the follower and they may simply find another target. If following continues, drive until you spot an officer or drive to a heavily populated area like a store; go inside and call 911. Never drive home if you believe you are being followed.
If you feel you are being followed and you are on foot, some people recommend that you turn on the follower. This would be done ONLY in a populated area; otherwise it won’t work. So, let’s step back and start with the most important step – get to people. Once you are around people you have many more options for safety. If you choose to turn on your attacker, you must show the ultimate confidence and be willing to behave loudly and belligerently. The aim is to call attention to yourself and the potential attacker. Say “WHAT do you WANT!” as loudly as possible. This should do the trick; but is not something I teach in my self defense video.
Whether you have trained with my self defense video, or have undergone actual hand to hand combat training in a live course, you don’t want a situation such as being followed to escalate unnecessarily. This is why you take small steps before open a can of you know what on someone whom you haven’t determined to be a good guy or a bad guy.
However, even though I don’t necessarily openly teach actually turning on someone who seems to be following you; I do believe in calling attention to yourself. So yelling or screaming or acting a little crazy all works! You can yell “Get Away!” “Fire!” or “Leave me Alone!” or whatever else comes to mind. If you carry a personal alarm (hint hint), use it.
If the person following has some sort of a weapon, then your situation is already escalated. You still do not want to make any moves (even if you have had hand to hand combat training) if you don’t absolutely have to. If being followed by someone with a weapon, you yell and scream and run to people as quickly as possible; putting as much space between you and this person as possible.
If they give chase, that’s when you pull out your self defense skills and put an end to the mayhem. Most of the time, lesser actions prove effective; but training is always the best option.
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