10 Tips for Surviving a Terrorist Vehicle Attack (1)
1) Face traffic when walking along the street. These attacks really aren’t preventable. Your best bet is to see the attack coming as quickly as possible and take evasive action. If you are walking along a sidewalk with your back facing traffic, you can be run down very quickly from behind without any warning. It’s better to face oncoming traffic. That way, if a car hops the curb and starts barreling along the sidewalk towards you, there may be enough time to dodge it or get inside a building before you get hit.
2) If you have a choice, walk along streets that have vehicle blockades or cars parked at the curb. Some urban areas have vehicle blockades to prevent cars from driving onto the sidewalks. Where possible, walk on sidewalks that utilize those protective features. If they aren’t available, use the next best thing…parked cars. A street lined with parked vehicles will make it difficult for a terrorist to get up on the sidewalk with his car. Take a look at the road below. One side of the street would be much safer to walk on than the other.
3) Watch for danger signs. Be alert for speeding vehicles, sounds of collisions, revving engines, or sudden unusual vehicle movements. If you see or hear something that is outside of the norm for your environment, don’t just blow it off. Look around and actively figure out if you are in danger. During attacks like these, a second or two of forewarning can be the difference between life and death.
4) Don’t rush to help the injured. In each of the historical worldwide vehicle attacks, injured people were stacked on the sidewalk like cord wood. Immediately after the attack, you may feel compelled to rush in and help those who have been hurt. Take a moment and assess the scene before wading into the chaos. Is the crashed vehicle a danger? Are there people in the area shooting or cutting people with knives? Is it possible that there is more than one attacker? I’d want to know the answer to all of those questions before I become completely distracted from my environment while providing aid to the victims.
5) Move indoors immediately, but don’t stay there. A sturdy structure offers a decent refuge from a vehicle driven by a terrorist intent on killing people. Get inside quickly. Stay away from large glass windows/doors and exterior walls. Once you get inside, you are relatively safe against a vehicular weapon. The problem is created, however, when waiting with a large group of people indoors exposes you to risks from terrorist attacks that are conducted in the more traditional manner of shooting, bombing, and stabbing. You don’t want to be huddled up into a tight group without an escape route.
6) Stay away from the attack vehicle and be alert for secondary attacks. Here’s my prediction for the next evolution of this type of attack. Terrorists will place a bomb in the car they used to run people over. Explosives set to go off 10 minutes after the vehicle attack. It’s the perfect secondary device. The bomb will kill all the first responders and anyone giving aid to the victims.
7) Don’t draw your firearm while you are attempting to figure out what’s happening. Those of you who regularly carry firearms may decide that the best course of action is to shoot the attack vehicle driver or his terrorist accomplices. That’s great. I commend you for any assistance you are willing to provide.
8) Don’t loiter on unprotected sidewalks. If you are walking on a busy street and need to stop in order to tie your shoes, write a text, or speak with a friend, stop at a spot on the sidewalk that offers you some protection from a car hopping the curb. Look at the picture above. The gaps between the parked cars are the likely routes the terrorists will use to get onto the sidewalk. Don’t stand there. You are much safer if you keep a parked car between you and the traffic lane like this group did.
9) Be able to deal with charging attackers. Few “gun people” train empty hand defenses against a person who is attacking with a bladed weapon. Many delusionally think “I’ll just shoot him” is an adequate response. While I have no problem with anyone shooting an armed terrorist, it may not be quite as easy as you think it is to pull off. Shooting bullseye targets is one thing. Shooting as you are being slashed or stabbed is a different skill set entirely.
10) Know how to treat knife wounds, vehicle impacts, and blast injuries. Having the knowledge to treat battlefield injuries is absolutely critical in today’s world. Your Red Cross First Aid/CPR course is not adequate training to prepare you for the mass casualty battlefield trauma environment. Seek out a quality “tactical first aid” class. If you can’t get to training, at least read my article Field Medicine for Terrorist Attacks.
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