Vehicles in motion, and not in motion!
In our DTI Vehicle Defense Courses, I heavily emphasize:
Safety is in Motion!
So long as the vehicle you’re in is in motion, you usually have the option of rapidly exiting a developing “danger zone,” even when exigent exiting involves driving over a curb, through a median, or over a flower-garden!
However, the American fast-food drive-through is so ubiquitous to our daily lives that most of us will routinely find ourselves physically “boxed-in” within one of these, more often than we wish.
Last Sunday, at a Taco Bell drive-through in OH, a young woman was precipitously murdered while at the wheel of her car, via a single pistol shot to her neck.
The perpetrator was a mentally-ill career loser who himself committed suicide (with the same pistol) seconds after he shot the young woman.
The perpetrator and the woman he murdered did not know each other
While in-line at the drive-through, the perpetrator first honked multiple times at the car in front of him (driven by the woman whom he murdered seconds later). He than deliberately rear-ended her vehicle while both vehicles were still in the drive-through queue.
The perpetrator then exited his vehicle, approached the vehicle in front of him (that he just smashed into), and shot the woman behind the wheel without warning, and without saying a word!
Seconds later, he shot himself (fatally)
Lessons:
1) Criminally insane people, like the above perpetrator, who should be institutionalized, are not! They’re running around loose, unsupervised, unrestrained. They’re extremely volatile, profoundly violent (as we see), and there are many of them!
2) Those of us who go armed need to think about fighting while seated in a stationary vehicle, maybe even do some training for such a situation. Effectively fighting from inside a vehicle may be acutely necessary some day!
3) Dress for success! Defensive pistols need to be reasonably accessible while you’re seated, and simultaneously wearing a seat-belt. Shoulder-holsters, appendix-carry, and sling-bags actually work better than do strong-side holsters in this circumstance.
4) “Just drive away” represents good advice, but only when it is possible. Getting yourself “boxed-in” should be abstained from, but it is sometimes unavoidable.
A “personal security expert” who was subsequently interviewed indicated that “just driving away” was always possible. Either he can’t speak the truth, or he is unwilling to talk about it!
When “avoidance” fails (despite our most sincere efforts), your very life will depend on your preparedness, skill, equipment, decisiveness, courage!
/John
