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My enemy on SA is divided attention. I've always had some level of SA in places like parking lots simply to avoid stepping out in front a vehicle (which often seem to come from nowhere). Since obtaining my CHL, I've made a conscious effort to expand my looking to every human that I can see and to places where a human body could be that I don't see at a particular moment.

It is all too easy, however, to have something else on my mind. This is much like driving along, thinking that I'm paying attention to my driving and suddenly arriving at a point in my drive without any memory of the last few events before I arrived there. I've found that I have too simple of a mind to be trying to remember the list of things that I'm supposed to buy at the store that I'm walking into AND be able to pay attention to all of the bodies around me. Recently, I've been forcing myself to put aside all other thoughts from the minute that I arrive in the parking lot until I'm inside the store and concentrate only on actively looking at everything. I very much like the suggestion of evaluating the clothing of everyone that I see because I think that exercise will help sharpen my concentration.

I read Gavin de Becker's "A Gift of Fear". He essentially says that one should pay attention to one's intuition. I've always done that. But I no longer think that is enough. It is situations like the OP that have convinced me of the need for even more concentration on my surroundings. I cannot rely on my "spidey sense" alone.