Situational Awareness

Situational awareness means being aware of what is happening around you and noticing things that may affect your safety.

It does not mean constantly looking for danger or being suspicious of everyone you meet.

It simply means paying enough attention to your surroundings that you are more likely to notice when something changes or does not seem right.

What are you noticing?

Wherever you are, there is information around you.

This might include:

• the people nearby

• what people are doing

• entrances and exits

• traffic and other hazards

• lighting

• places where other people are present

• changes in noise or activity

• anything unusual for that particular place or situation

You do not need to consciously study everything.

The aim is to have a general awareness of your surroundings rather than becoming so focused on one thing that you miss everything else.

Attention is limited

Our brains cannot give equal attention to everything happening around us.

Think about walking through a busy town centre while reading a message on your phone.

Your eyes might occasionally look ahead, but much of your attention is focused on the screen. You may be less likely to notice someone approaching, a change in the environment or where your nearest exit is.

The same thing can happen when wearing headphones, having an intense conversation or concentrating on finding somewhere unfamiliar.

These things are not necessarily unsafe.

The important question is:

Where is my attention right now?

Avoiding tunnel vision

When we concentrate heavily on one thing, our awareness of everything else can reduce. This is sometimes described as tunnel vision.

Imagine you are trying to find the correct train platform while looking at directions on your phone.

You might be concentrating so much on the directions that you do not notice who is around you or that you have walked into a quieter part of the station.

A simple pause to look around can restore some of that awareness.

You might notice:

• where you are

• who is nearby

• where other people are

• where the exits are

• whether anything has changed

This only takes a few seconds.

Awareness should change with the situation

You do not need the same level of awareness everywhere.

Sitting with friends in a familiar café is very different from walking through an unfamiliar area late at night.

Your level of awareness should respond to the environment.

Ask yourself:

Where am I?

What is happening around me?

Is this what I would normally expect here?

Has anything changed?

If something does change, you can then decide whether you need to do anything differently.

Trust what you notice

Sometimes you may become uncomfortable without immediately knowing why.

This does not automatically mean that you are in danger.

Your brain may simply have noticed something before you have consciously worked out what it is.

Rather than ignoring that feeling or assuming the worst, use it as a reason to pay more attention.

Look around.

What has changed?

What have you noticed?

What options are available to you?

You do not need proof that something is wrong before making a sensible decision to improve your safety.

Situational awareness creates options

Being aware does not guarantee that you can prevent every difficult or dangerous situation.

What it can do is give you more information and potentially more time to make a decision.

You may notice an alternative route.

You may see somewhere you could go for help.

You may decide to create more distance.

You may simply decide that everything is fine and continue what you were doing.

This brings us back to the approach we will use throughout this manual:

NOTICE → THINK → ACT

The aim is not to be constantly worried about what might happen.

It is to notice enough of what is happening now that you have more choices about what you do next.

The earlier you notice something, the more options you have.