On Ramming Terrorist Attacks and the Possibilities of Protection against Them

Abstract

Recently we have witnessed several attacks in Europe, in which terrorists used vehicles as their weapons. We can expect that such attacks utilizing vehicles, called ramming attacks, will proliferate because they are simple, cheap and hard to uncover. Today these means are used not only by radical Islamist terrorists, but also by other radicals and lone psychotics, as well. Ramming attacks are primarily effective when targeting mass events, therefore protection against these should also focus on protecting the people participating in such events and on developing the police and medical reaction capabilities. As parliamentary elections are coming up in Hungary, the number of mass events is also going to increase, therefore it is necessary to gain an analytical picture of ramming attacks throughout Europe to be able to guarantee safety and security in Hungary, as well.