Working late hours are increasingly common in today’s hustle and bustle society. Whether you are scheduled for the graveyard shift or you are working overtime to complete a project or simply earn extra pay, leaving a place of business during late night hours is a scary and sometimes albeit dangerous scenario. It’s unfortunate, but parking assaults are an increasingly common phenomenon. In order to keep safe during the short traveled distance of the office building to the parking garage or parking lot, it is important to protect yourself from simple muggings and more complex kidnapping or assaults. Delco Alarm wants to provide you with a few tips to help deter any attacks and to put your mind at ease.
1. Know Your Surroundings
As a general rule of thumb, it is beneficial to spend a little time during the daytime hours canvasing the area you frequent at night. It is important to know the area, to have an idea of where to hide, where others would hide and the best routes and their alternatives from the building to the car. It will also prove beneficial to know who else works late night. Whether you build a bond with a security guard, another co-worker or worker in the building, knowing someone in the area in the event of an incident can make a huge difference. However, just to be clear, it is important to get to know someone before divulging too much personal information. But in an effort to fortify allies be cordial and find out any information you can to benefit your situation.
2. Don’t Look Like A Victim – Be Alert
Like burglars, assailants are looking for easy targets. They are not looking for individuals who appear to put up a fight or who are aware of those around them. Keep your eyes open and constantly scan your surroundings. The number one accessory that will make you appear to be a victim is a cell phone. Walking with your phone to your face deep in conversation, or walking and texting are all distractions keeping you from fully observing your surrounding. Attackers look for these types of distractions in a possible victim. Another form of being alert is to listen to your surrounding. Again, cell phones and music devices only prove to distract you or drown out potentially harmful noises.
3. Stay In Well Lit, Monitored Areas
As discussed in point 1, it is important to know your surroundings. Not all parking garages have commercial security cameras set up. Find out if the staircases or elevators have security monitoring devices and which areas are monitored or have blind spots in the building’s security system. Where elevators and stairways seem like great places to get trapped they may also be great places to lure an attacker to unknowingly be seen. It is also beneficial to have a check in person. Someone who you alert to the fact that you are leaving the building then alert again when you get in the car and lock the doors. This way in the event of an incident, there is no loss of time in aid arriving.
4. Have A Plan
In some instances, worst case scenario of course, it is clever to walk with cell phone in hand with your finger on the dialer to call a 911 operator, or less drastic, a family member or friend who knows you are working or out late. This friend will already have a strategy in place in the event that they receive a call from you that is vague anonymous or strange. As with children, you can also create a safety or code word to yell out without an attacker knowing you have dialed anyone or alerted them to distress. This friend will stay on the line with you, while calling authorities and filling them in with your information and location. Again, this is worse case scenario planning but will help immensely in a daunting situation.
If you have any questions about residential or commercial alarm systems, don’t hesitate to call Delco Alarm at 610-459-0800. Delco Alarm is based out of Aston, PA and provides service to the tri-state area including West Chester, Aston, Media, Chadds Ford, Chester, Kennett Square, Newtown Square, Glen Mills, Malvern, Exton, Downingtown, Philadelphia, Wilmington, DE and New Jersey.