Car ramming attacks: Why do they keep happening?
Cars are being used as weapons, to ram, kill and maim innocent people. The reasons why are not always clear, nor are solutions to preventing
Cars are being used as weapons, to ram, kill and maim innocent people. The reasons why are not always clear, nor are solutions to preventing such attacks. The deadly vehicle attack in Germany has once again raised concerns about vehicles being used as weapons, as it follows a series of similar attacks around the world. In this latest incident, one person was killed and more than a dozen others were injured after a vehicle drove into a crowd near Berlin’s Christopher Street Day (CSD) Pride celebrations on Saturday evening. The attack occurred in the Tiergarten area close to the Brandenburg Gate, where hundreds of thousands of people had gathered for one of Europe’s largest LGBTQ+ events. German authorities launched a large-scale manhunt and later identified a 21-year-old suspect known to police for alleged ties to Islamist circles. Investigators are continuing to examine the circumstances and motive behind the attack. But regardless of the motive, the incident once again highlights a troubling question raised by similar attacks in recent years: Why are vehicles so often used as weapons? Weaponized cars have a global footprint Cars' size, speed and maneuverability also make them potentially deadly. In recent years they have been more frequently used to kill or maim people. Cars became prominent as a weapon in terrorist attacks during a series of incidents in Israel amid ongoing conflict with local militant groups there during the early 2010s. The use of vehicles to ram public spaces was also encouraged by the so-called "Islamic State" group in the mid-2010s. In Europe, attacks in Nice — where 86 people were killed in a truck attack — Westminster Bridge in London, Barcelona and Berlin have been among the most devastating incidents.
Cars have also been used in a series of attacks in China and in several high profile incidents in the US. While many of these attacks had religious and political motivations, that isn't always the case. Even those that occur close together may be unrelated. A spate of attacks using cars in German towns sparked fears of copy-cat incidents Image: Boris Roessler/dpa/picture alliance That is true for a recent series of ramming incidents in Germany that had no common ideological thread. The alleged perpetrator in December 2024's Magdeburg attack was a Saudi national with anti-Islam beliefs. In contrast, the suspect in February's Munich killings may have had a pro-Islamist motivation, according to prosecutors. And the suspect at the center of March's Mannheim attack is believed to be a German-born individual with no history of extremist tendencies. What they do have in common is the car. Copycat attacks In 2018, sociologist Vincent Miller of the UK's Kent University and Keith Hayward, a professor of criminology at Copenhagen University, co-authored a study about the nature of car rammings as "imitative" events. They argued such incidents work like "memes" offering a model for others to replicate rather than encouraging any specific ideological motivation. Miller pointed to recent events in China, which have been described as "revenge on society" attacks and have resulted in perpetrators being given the death penalty. "The people that are doing this are often quite aggrieved, there's a sense of injustice there, a sense of anger," Miller told DW. In the aftermath of such attacks, there may be little definitive evidence of political or religious motives.
The BriefWire