Terror on wheels: the history of vehicle-ramming attacks

Fifteen people were killed, and more than 30 injured, when a man drove a pick-up truck at high speed through crowds of people in the streets of New Orleans in the early hours of New Year's Day.

The attack in the US, which is being treated by the FBI as "an act of terrorism", came only a fortnight after an SUV was driven into crowds at a Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, killing five people and injuring 200.

Vehicle-ramming attacks are becoming "an increasing common terrorist tactic", according to transportation-safety researchers at San José State University. It is a "growing trend, and a frightening one": where once perpetrators were likely to be "mental disordered individuals", they are now often "confirmed or likely" jihadists.

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When did vehicle-ramming attacks start?

Using vehicles as a weapon has a "long history" that's "mostly unrelated to organised terrorism", said The New York Times. In 1964, a bus driver ran down four people in Taipei, Taiwan, killing three of them, in a rampage triggered by a low work-performance rating. Nine years later, a 22-year-old Czech woman mowed down eight people in Prague with a pick-up truck, "citing her grievances against society".

Over the following few decades, there were a number of ramming attacks associated with the Palestinian cause, and mostly confined to Israel and the West Bank. But vehicle-ramming began to spread more widely in 2016, after Islamic State told followers that "if you are not able to find an improvised explosive device or a bullet", they should attack the "disbelieving American, Frenchman or any of their allies" and "run him over with your car".

The jihadist group's magazine, Rumiyah, even explained the optimum weight and speed of a vehicle to create the "ultimate bloodbath", and suggested that followers should "hit" large outdoor gatherings and "pedestrian-congested streets".

That same year, a Tunisian-born French resident drove a rented lorry along a busy seaside promenade in Nice, killing 86 people and wounding more than 400. Over the following months, there were vehicle-ramming attacks in Berlin, London and the US, all claimed by Islamic State.

Why have vehicle rammings become more widespread?

Following the September 11 attacks, high-profile targets, such as airports and public buildings, were increasingly heavily guarded. This meant terrorists started to consider "more vulnerable targets", such as crowds of people in public spaces, said The New York Times.

Vehicle rammings have now "become the jihadist's weapon of choice", said The Times, because they are a "low-tech tactical innovation" that achieves success while minimising "the risk of detection by law enforcement". Hiring or stealing a car or truck does not raise the same "red flags" that obtaining weapons or bomb-making materials would. And it's much cheaper, making the ramming attack the "poor man's weapon of mass destruction".

By transforming "a bland, everyday object into a lethal, semi-strategic weapon", said researchers in a 2019 paper, published in The British Journal of Criminology, ramming attacks offer "marginal actors" the chance to "strike at the heart of urban centres" and "sow fear in the wider society".

What's being done to stop vehicle-ramming attacks?

Security bollards have become more commonplace in busy public areas, and were credited with "minimising damage and casualties" in the 2007 Glasgow airport attack, among others.

But recent attacks "have shown how difficult it can be to eliminate the threat entirely", said The New York Times. The Magdeburg perpetrator dodged preventative measures by using a lane reserved for ambulances, and a police spokesperson told the media that the New Orleans attacker "went around our barricades".