Police in New Orleans are calling the New Year’s Day truck ramming that killed 14 people and injured more than 30 a deliberate act of terror. According to the Associated Press, the FBI is investigating the case as a potential terrorist act, though a definitive motive has not yet been revealed. The attacker, identified as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old Army veteran, reportedly drove a rented pickup truck at high speed into a dense crowd on Bourbon Street before engaging in a short firefight with police before being fatally shot.
This latest tragedy is part of a grim trend that security experts call “vehicle as a weapon” attacks. Over the past two decades, vehicles have increasingly been used to inflict mass casualties, with motives ranging from extremist ideologies to mental health crises or personal vendettas. The growing history of such incidents has spurred cities worldwide to rethink urban design, erecting concrete barriers around public spaces and incorporating anti-vehicle obstacles into new infrastructure projects.
The New Orleans attack preceded by mere hours another vehicular tragedy in Las Vegas. There, a Tesla Cybertruck exploded outside the Trump International Hotel, killing the driver who had filled his vehicle with fireworks and gas canisters, and injuring seven bystanders. While the Las Vegas case involved explosives packed inside a vehicle that was parked in a strategic location to inflict mass casualties, the FBI has yet to classify it as terrorism. Regardless, the devastating outcome underscores the broader risk posed by vehicles when misused.
The rising frequency of these attacks raises pressing questions about public safety and policy responses, and with anti-gun politicians so quick to want to outlaw firearms and decry every time a gun is used to commit a violent act as evidence why they should be banned or access severely limited, you have to wonder if they will follow that same line of thinking with vehicles. After all, a person in a speeding car or truck can create a lot of death and mayhem before they are stopped. And the number of such attacks have been increasing. In fact, following a similar such attack at a German market just before Christmas, authorities in the U.S. were warned to be vigiliant of possible vehicle ramming attacks on our soil during the remaining holiday season as well.
While firearms are often the focus of debates on violent crime, vehicle-based attacks highlight that the tools of terror extend far beyond guns. Should policymakers consider tighter regulations on vehicle rentals, advanced surveillance systems or even drastic measures such as banning certain types of vehicles from high-traffic areas? If you’re going to make such arguments against firearms, then logic follows they will likely make the same such arguments against cars. Throw in the buzz words of “reduced car emissions” courtesy of fewer cars being allowed to be owned to aid the “climate crisis” and leftists will be outracing each other to cancel vehicles as part of our culture. Oh wait, no they won’t, because most of them drive cars and only hate “other” people’s cars; not theirs or the ones they ride in to bars, Chipotle and music festivals.
While obviously a ban on vehicles is as insane of an idea as arguing for a ban on firearms, the danger cars can pose when a person intent on evil is behind the wheel is a very real concern indeed.
According to the Associated Press, the trend of vehicle attacks is forcing planners and policymakers to actually grapple with this new reality. Public events, festivals and even everyday trips through busy city centers are increasingly punctuated by security barriers and a heightened sense of vigilance. The acts of terrorists and criminals in reality inflict deadly consequences on a statistically small percentage of our society, but at their broader level of impact, they are a pain in the ass to everyone in our society as we must alter our lives to accommodate and prepare for the dangers they pose.
Following is a list compiled by the Associated Press of notable vehicle-based attacks in recent years:
NEW ORLEANS, Jan. 1, 2025 — At least 15 people are killed and dozens are injured after a U.S. citizen from Texas who had converted to Islam rams his truck into a crowd of pedestrians in New Orleans’ bustling French Quarter district at 3:15 a.m. on New Year’s Day. The FBI identifies the suspect as 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar. He is killed in a firefight with police. The FBI says several possible explosive devices were recovered and that a flag associated with the Islamic State group was found in the truck.
MAGDEBURG, Germany, Dec. 20. 2024 — At least five people are killed and more than 200 are injured when a car slams into a Christmas market in eastern Germany. Police arrest a 50-year-old doctor from Saudi Arabia who has renounced Islam and supports the far-right AfD party.
ZHUHAI, China, Nov. 11, 2024 — A 62-year-old driver rams his car into people exercising at a sports complex in southern China, killing 35, in the country’s deadliest attack in years. Authorities say the suspect is upset about his divorce. He pleads guilty to endangering public safety by dangerous means and is sentenced to death.
LONDON, Ontario, June 6, 2021 — Four members of a Muslim family are killed when an attacker hits them with a pickup truck. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau calls it “a terrorist attack, motivated by hatred.” White nationalist Nathaniel Veltman is sentenced to life in prison.
TORONTO, April 23, 2018 — A 25-year-old Canadian man, Alek Minassian, drives a rental van into mostly female pedestrians on Yonge St., the main thoroughfare in Toronto, killing 10 people and injuring 16. Minassian tells police he belongs to an online “incel” community of sexually frustrated men. He is sentenced to life in prison.
NEW YORK, Oct. 31, 2017 — Sayfullo Saipov, an Islamic extremist from Uzbekistan, drives a pickup truck onto a popular New York City bike path, killing eight people. He is convicted of federal terrorism charges and sentenced to 10 life sentences plus 260 years in prison.
BARCELONA, Aug. 17, 2017 — A man rams a van into people on the Spanish city’s crowded Las Ramblas boulevard, killing 14 and injuring others. The Islamic State group claims responsibility. Several members of the same cell carry out a similar attack in the nearby resort town of Cambrils, killing one person.
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Virginia, Aug. 12, 2017 — During a “Unite the Right” rally in which counter-protestors incited violence and attacks on those in attendance, the violence spun out of control and white supremacist James Alex Fields Jr. drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one woman and injuring dozens of people. Fields is serving a life sentence for murder and hate crimes.
LONDON, June 19, 2017 — Darren Osborne, a man radicalized by far-right ideas, drives a van into worshippers outside a mosque in Finsbury Park, killing one man and injuring 15 people. Osborne is sentenced to life in prison.
LONDON, June 3, 2017 — Three Islamic State group-inspired extremists drive a van into pedestrians on London Bridge before stabbing people in nearby Borough Market. Eight people are killed and the attackers are shot dead by police.
LONDON, March 22, 2017 — British man Khalid Masood, who had converted to Islam and had a violent past, rams an SUV into people on Westminster Bridge, killing four, then fatally stabs a policeman guarding the Houses of Parliament. Masood is shot dead.
MELBOURNE, Australia, Jan. 20, 2017 – Six people are killed and more than 30 injured when a car hits lunchtime crowds at a pedestrian mall in Australia’s second-largest city. James Gargasoulas is found to have been in a state of drug-induced psychosis and is sentenced to life in prison.
BERLIN, Dec. 19, 2016 — Anis Amri, a rejected asylum-seeker from Tunisia, plows a hijacked truck into a Christmas market in the German capital, killing 13 people and injuring dozens. The attacker is killed days later in a shootout in Italy.
NICE, France, July 14, 2016 — Tunisian-born French resident Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, an Islamic State sympathizer, drives a rented truck for more than a mile (almost 2 kilometers) along a packed seaside promenade in the French Riviera resort on the Bastille Day holiday, killing 86 people in the deadliest attack of its kind. He is killed by police, but eight other people are sentenced to prison for helping orchestrate the attack.
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