Public security

VEHICLES ARE WEAPONS TOO

The Guardian quotes Berlin’s police chief as saying, “The risk of terrorist attacks cannot be reduced to zero.” Still, government officials worldwide need to better inform and protect their people. At the very least, they should hold educational forums in communities with widely attended open-air venues, and ensure documentation about how to respond in the event of such disasters is accessible to all. Because here’s the brutal truth: motor vehicles are being used as weapons of mass destruction – “mass” as in the numbers of lives they extinguish and the massive blow they inflict upon survivors and families of the dead. Even your vehicle, and mine, can be transformed into engines of destruction in a matter of seconds, making us all vulnerable in ways we’ve hardly contemplated before.