Into the Crowd: The Evolution of Vehicular Attacks and Prevention Efforts

attackers will also impact the type of protection that needs to be set up, according to speed, weight, size, and special capacity in the case of a weaponized excavator or bulldozer. Detection of potential attackers is also made difficult because of the number of vehicles in urban areas and because of the usual absence of criminal acts in the preparation of attacks. In the Magdeburg, New Orleans, and Munich attacks, the intention of the perpetrators was only clear to law enforcement personnel at the moment the vehicle entered the restricted zones, just seconds before the attacks began.

On the response side, vehicular attacks are extremely fast-paced events with the immediate potential for a large number of casualties, including numerous polytraumatized victims who need immediate medical attention. The speed and impact of vehicular attacks sometimes resemble more of a large bomb attack than a mass shooting. The complexity of the victims’ injuries presents challenges that go beyond the medical capacities of first responders.

The Evolution of the Threat
According to the University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database, there were 288 incidents of vehicular terrorism from 1970 to 2020.¹⁷ This number is focused on vehicles used as blunt-force weapons to attack civilians and does not include vehicle-borne explosives, or, in the case of Israel, against soldiers.

In 1973, Olga Hepnarová killed eight people in Prague when she drove her Praga RN truck into a group of pedestrians. Four years later, a man in his early 30s rammed his car into the stage during a Ku Klux Klan rally in Plains, Georgia, injuring some 30 people.¹⁸ Seven years later, in 1984, an individual looking to “get even with the police” drove his car into a crowd in Los Angeles, killing one person and injuring 54 injured.¹⁹ Similar attacks took place elsewhere in the world, including in Australia and Brazil.²⁰ From 1990 to early 2000, there were regular vehicular attacks in Israel and the West Bank, frequently targeting IDF soldiers at bus stops.²¹ This method of attack continued and expanded in the 2010s, mostly used by lone operators organizing attacks without the support of a group. In a 2010 edition of the al-Qa`ida magazine Inspire, jihadi groups promoted such tactics due to their efficiency, calling followers to “mow down the enemies of Allah.”²² In the mid-2010s, there was an increase in Palestinian vehicular attacks in Israel and the West Bank,²³ at the same time a wave of