SecurityDriver News

By Joe Autera

One of the many challenges that corporate security professionals face is maintaining adequate security for their executives and other key personnel as they go about their daily business. Often times, these challenges are far greater when those folks are traveling beyond the umbrella of protection that has been established for them in and around their residence, their workplace and while moving between these familiar locations. But what happens when they are visiting an out-of state (or overseas) facility? Or attending a meeting in a city where the company has no presence? We’ve all heard the stories of executives getting in the wrong car at some unfamiliar airport or, worse yet, hailing a cab when they can’t seem to find the driver hired to take them to that meeting and, on more than one occasion, listened as a corporate pilot or personal assistant recounts how some executive was picked-up ramp side by some nefarious looking character in a vehicle that was better suited for the scrap pile than carrying passengers.

When issues like this arise, they aren’t necessarily the fault of the person who was responsible for arranging the transportation, though they often bear the brunt of it. Larger transportation companies often boast of how many cities they cover, when in reality they sub-contract a large portion of their work out to independent operators, especially in cities with low volumes of business. Now, with the advent of the internet and pre-packaged web sites it’s all too easy for someone, say the independent driver with a single twelve year old sedan, to portray themselves as something other than what they are, like a high end, professional car service with modern cars and equipment. Complacency also plays a part in some of the problems that arise with ground transportation, particularly in smaller companies as they tend to rely on vendors simply because they’re the ones they have always used, even though the company’s needs may have changed dramatically.

Today, finding the right transportation provider is becoming even more complicated as a shifting economy and negative media attention have raised the profile and increased the security risks for many corporations and their executives while, at the same time, budgets are being cut and cost saving measures are being implemented across the board. All of this places an even greater importance on ensuring that contract ground transportation providers are not the weak link in your security program and that your company is getting what it pays for.

Regardless of whether risk management (security) or cost effectiveness is the driving factor in the decision making process, given what’s at stake – the safety and security of some of the company’s valuable assets – the need for a formal vetting process for transportation providers has never been greater. When properly documented, the results of such a process will prove useful in identifying which provider truly offers the better value, as opposed to the best price.

The framework for a ground transportation provider vetting process, that has proven to be useful for corporate security decision makers and satisfies most basic due diligence requirements is outlined below.

1. Verify vendors financial standing through third party service (Dunn & Bradstreet, Hoover’s, etc.)
2. Verify vendor holds proper operating licenses – transportation, security or both – for all locales they will be providing service in.  
3. Verify insurance (require that their broker provide ACORD certificates of insurance directly to you).
4. Establish contractual requirements for minimum coverage levels, require notification of any change in status or coverage
5. Check for and review current and past civil or criminal case filings in all locales where vendor operates – not just those where they will be servicing your account (use data mining service such as LexisNexis, Choicepoint, etc.)
6. Check with Better Business Bureau, or similar agency, for complaints in all locales where vendor operates – not just those where they will be servicing your account
7. Review vendors hiring practices (minimum qualifications, requisite experience etc. Require proof of compliance (i.e. sampling of documentation/credentials of new or recent hires as well as long term employees).
8. Review vendors training requirements (type of programs, frequency of training). Require proof of compliance (again, a sampling of documentation pertaining to current employees)
9. Review vendor’s maintenance and vehicle replacement program or policies, require proof of compliance (i.e. sampling of documentation for specific vehicles). For example, we are aware of at least one transportation provider that replaces all vehicles at 30K miles and has a strict maintenance schedule
10. Ensure vendor  has capability to fully support your security needs (i.e. drivers with specialized security training – not just off-duty police officers) through client references and review of appropriate documentation

As with any other vetting process the operative phrase is “trust, but verify”. When it comes to documentation and references, you want to take every step possible to ensure the accuracy and legitimacy of the information provided by contacting references directly, getting documentation directly from the source (i.e. the insurance broker), and establishing a contractual right to request further documentation, updated information or to perform periodic inspections, at your discretion.

While there is a lot to be said for dealing with larger, more established vendors there are some downsides as well (high turnover, less clout for your company, less emphasis on customer service, etc.) and if you happen to be in need of more specialized services – like experienced security drivers or drivers with BLS/AED certification, specially-equipped vehicles or the like – dealing with a smaller company with a shorter track record may be the only option available. If security is the deciding factor you may be best served by dealing with one of the few local or regional companies that provide a bona fide secure ground transportation service. Of course, regardless of how large or small the service providers business may be, a thorough vetting process will help guard against costly and embarrassing problems further down the road.

Depending on your occupation, there is no doubt there are scenarios where one may need to drive fast. The difficulty associated with driving fast depends on three issues, the skill of the driver, the vehicle they are driving and the environment they are driving through. On an ice covered road 30 MPH can be exciting, on a four lane highway with the sun shining, 80 MPH could go unnoticed. In a three vehicle motorcade, the driver of the lead vehicle may not think 70 MPH is a problem, but the driver of the third vehicle may disagree with that assessment.

Driving fast is a complicated issue. Let’s be clear that driving fast in a straight line is not difficult, unless you are sitting in a Dragster that consists of a metal tube with a 6000 HP engine behind you, and you are planning on going 300 MPH in a quarter mile. Driving fast becomes difficult when you need to operate one of the other controls (brake – steering) of the vehicle. In a non racing scenario it makes little difference how fast you’re traveling in a straight line, the skill (and excitement) comes in when you need to do something with the car, like driving around a corner or making an avoidance maneuver, at that point it becomes not an exercise in high speed straight line driving, but an exercises in high speed braking or turning. All this requires training and practice, and there is an enormous difference between driving around a corner fast, and driving out of an emergency.

SOME BASIC THOUGHTS ON DRIVING FAST

As speed increases, drivers’ eye tends to focus on objects just a short distance in front of the car’s hood. Common sense says that the faster you drive the further ahead of the car your attention should be focused. In a high risk environment you need the eyes of everyone in the vehicle coupled with a method of communicating what they see to the driver, or drivers, this requires training and practice.

The faster you drive, the more often you should consult your speedometer. You cannot rely on your own judgment; the faster you drive, the more your perception of speed becomes distorted.

Don’t drive faster than you can see. If you are driving at 60 MPH you are moving approximately 90 Feet a Second, most researchers say that you need 2.5 seconds to react to what you see, that means at 60 mph you would need 225 feet to react to what is happening. It is my opinion that training considerably cuts down those 2.5 seconds.This is the most important issue and training point – When you increase speed, you are suddenly driving a very different car from the one you were in control of a few moments ago. If you double your speed from 40 mph to 80 mph, the forces acting on the vehicle, has been increased by a factor of four. Turning the steering wheel at 80 mph will put four times as much stress on the car as the same maneuver at 40 mph. And no matter what braking method you use, it will take you four times longer to stop the vehicle.

 It may be difficult to think of a 10,000 lb armored Suburban as “sensitive”, but a car’s controls are extremely sensitive to speed, the faster you go, the more sensitive the vehicles braking and steering become. Small changes in speed (as little as 2 MPH) will dramatically change the vehicles response to the drivers input. Controlling a vehicle while driving into a corner or through an emergency maneuver is a skill that needs to be learned, practiced, and measured.

To give an example of how sensitive vehicles are to speed; A competent driver can drive through our slalom exercise at 30 MPH with little or no problems; at 32 life will start to become exciting; at 35, doable but very exciting; at 37.5 the car will be sliding, but again doable; at 40 MPH the driver will not be able to complete the exercise. A change of about 2 MPH will be the difference between successes and failure. How this translates to the real world is that you can be driving 100 MPH in a straight line (easy to teach, it’s the pedal on the right – press on it) but if you need to make an emergency maneuver or drive around a corner you will have to slow the car down from 100 MPH to a speed that the driver – vehicle – environment can handle, and that is not easy to teach or master.

DESIGNING DRIVING EXERCISES

The purpose of  placing a student in a given exercise or scenario is to evoke a response from the driver/vehicle which introduces or reinforces specific skills or skill sets , and to afford an opportunity to coach the student on applying those skills and, of course, measure their baseline performance and quantify their improvement. None of this can be accomplished without understanding of vehicle dynamics. This understanding leads to questions that a professional driving instructor asks and can provide answers to:

 How far apart are the cones in the slalom?

What is the width of the barrier in the lane change?

What is the maximum capability of the vehicle, measured in G’s, in each exercise?

What is the maximum rate of de-acceleration of the vehicle?

At what speed does the student approach the vehicles maximum capability in each  exercise (or scenario) that you place them in?

Why are the answers to these questions so important? Because if the instructor does not know the maximum capability of the vehicle and what conditions and/or limitations an exercise will impose on that vehicle, it is impossible to measure the capability of the driver. And if the instructor cannot determine what the driver was capable of at the beginning of their training and then compare that to what the student is capable of at the conclusion of their training, there is no way to determine if the training was effective; in fact, there is no way to establish and meet objective goals for the training.  Perhaps more importantly, without measuring the student’s capability there is simply no way for them to fully recognize what they can, and cannot, do behind the wheel.

 Ultimately, you cannot separate vehicle dynamics from driver training; hence instructors MUST have a thorough understanding of vehicle dynamics and the ability to apply that knowledge to driver training.  Because once they have that understanding, they then have the ability to provide training that incorporates the three critical factors of survivability behind-the-wheel emergencies – the driver, the vehicle and the environment – into exercises that not only provide a mechanism for measuring the driver’s improvement, but also closely replicate the types of emergencies he or she is likely to face.

 For an example of just how advantageous this understanding  can be to the instructor, we  just need to look  back at a an Instructor-level Vehicle Dynamics and Exercise Design program TSVDI conducted for a Federal Agency. When we passed out the calculators (standard issue for the vehicle dynamics savvy instructor), one of the students was looking at the calculator like a monkey might look at a watch – confused. It wasn’t long before he came up to Tony and expressed his displeasure that he would have to learn math to pass the course. He, like many others we have trained, pointed out that during his high school days; (with some it even extends into their college days) math was the bane of his existence. In a roundabout way he made the point that he was concerned that he would not pass the course because of the math. Tony’s answer was the same for him as it has been for scores of others with the same concern – hang in for a few days, and give it your best shot, while we give our best shot to teaching you the math.

 Three days later, as we were on the track designing a training exercise to recreate a specific incident that involved their unique vehicles and the difference a new found knowledge of math and vehicle dynamics made was quite obvious. Tony had put together some guidelines for the students regarding the exercise design elements, and this same guy that had , just a couple of days before, been concerned about passing the course walks up to him  and says “I don’t agree with the way you suggested we design this exercise”. He then proceeded to walk Tony through nearly a full page of calculations he had worked out to express how he thought the exercise should be designed and thoroughly explained why he thought that. In just a few days this instructor had gone from being intimidated by the math required to design driving exercises to combining his knowledge of the laws of physics (and, god forbid, math)  with his operational knowledge of the agencies mission objectives, the unique vehicles they operated and the types of incidents they had faced in the past to develop an exemplary driving exercise; one in which the drivers capability to resolve the problem while maintaining control of the vehicle was able to be objectively measured and, more importantly, drivers would be able to recognize that they were fully capable of resolving successfully.

 At the end of the day, that is the real value provided by an instructor who understands vehicle dynamics and how they apply to drivers training.

There is a good article on “Skill Enhancement vs. Certification” on Jerry MacCauley’s Personal Protection Concepts Blog. Jerry has been a law enforcement trainer for over 29 years, and his Blog is filled with information for the EP Industry. If you are involved in training in any way – this is a must read.

A while back, I was asked to do lessons learned from a vehicle ambush. It was a two car scenario with both cars taking some hits, but no injuries. The company wanted to know why these two drivers were able to drive out of this, these are there words not mine, with relative ease.

We went to the scene of the attack with the two drivers and asked them what they saw, when did they see it, and where were they when they saw it. My conclusion was that the driver of the principal’s car had a 1 to 1.5 second jump on the incident; basically he was 1.5 seconds ahead of the ambush.

My educated guess is that if these drivers had delayed there action by .5 to 1 second that these two guys would not be standing on a street corner talking to the big gringo. The question that needs to be answered is what gave them the “extra” time.

To answer that question you need to look at the science of reaction time. According to the scientists who have done an enormous amount of research on driver reaction time the “average” driver needs 2.5 seconds from the time they see the problem to the time they react to the problem. A Dr. Green has been researching reaction time for years, if interested in the science of reaction time Google his name. Here is a small part of what he found;

Condition A – When the driver knows they have to brake they can achieve the best possible reaction time. He says that the best estimate is 0.7 second. Of this, 0.5 is perception and 0.2 is movement, the time required to release the accelerator and to depress the brake pedal.

 Condition B – When the need to brake is a complete surprise reaction time is substantially different. In this case Dr. Green suggests that the best estimate is 1.5 seconds for something that may be coming at you from the side (This attack came from the side) and a few tenths of a second faster for straight-ahead obstacles.

What does all this science stuff have to do with Surveillance Detection?  A good SD program trains you to recognize pre incident indicators and to indentify danger zones. If through a good SD program you are in Condition A – you have an extra .5 to 1 second additional time to react to the problem. In the case of my two drivers according to my calculations it gave them an extra 26 to 52 feet, enough for them to drive out of the problem.

Since the mid-sixties Carlos Marighella’s Mini-Manual of The Urban Guerilla has been must reading for terrorist groups throughout the world. The book has been around for years and emphasizes the importance of pre-attack surveillance, and describes the attack planning process in detail

 The good news is that we have their pre attack planning process in writing – the bad news is that we ignore it.

 Marighella describes the ingredients necessary for a successful ambush.  Taken from his book they are:

 1.          Surprise

2.          Better knowledge of the terrain

3.          Greater mobility and speed than the enemy

4.          Total command of the situation.

 Carlos states that for an ambush (including vehicle ambush) to be successful the attackers must have all four ingredients working for them.  And to have all four working for you, surveillance must be conducted up to the time of the attack. These are his words – not mine.

 Understanding how, when and where an attacker is likely to conduct surveillance as well as how to plan, manage and conduct effective surveillance detection operations is an essential tool for security providers. 

 If all, or part of your duties require, supplying personal protection I would suggest reading the book. If you Google his name you will finding may sights selling it or as a free download. Amazon will gift wrap for you.  Also consider a Surveillance Detection Program for your list of to do’s.  In my opinion detecting surveillance does not get the attention it should.  Simply said – history has shown that in many situations surveillance detection is not just the best protection; it may be the only protection.

 There are some good books on awareness and surveillance.

First and foremost driver training is a science. If an instructor places a student in a scenario that defies the laws of physics they will fail, over and over again. A driver’s limit is dictated by the laws of physics as they apply to a specific vehicle and environment, like it or not, and despite what some might say, driving is a MEASURABLE SKILL. Many of the multi-discipline training programs, some of which include a driver training component, will objectively test every discipline EXCEPT driving, from our perspective this makes no sense at all and is a dis-service to the student. While it is true that measuring driving skill is a bit more complicated than measuring the students ability to shoot and hit the target – as evidenced by the “clang” of steel or the holes in the paper. When looking at driving skills, there has been a great deal of research done, money spent and data collected that allows us to better understand  how drivers make decisions in emergencies and  how long it takes them to make the decisions that determine success or failure. The end result of all this research is the advancements that have been made in measuring driving skill and, therefore, survivability in an emergency scenario. For some inexplicable reason most of this vitally important information is largely ignored by the driver training community, with the exception of some of the high end racing schools.

There are books and engineering papers that highlight the criticality of accurately measuring and monitoring driver/vehicle characteristics and performance.  These measurements are essential to any and all advanced driver training programs that seek to improve the driver’s ability to recognize and effectively respond to behind-the-wheel emergencies without losing control of their vehicle. In situations that offer the driver limited maneuvering room and even less time, maintaining control of a vehicle requires the driver to operate within a narrow range of speed (deceleration or acceleration) and steering inputs, the limits of which are defined by – you guessed it, the laws of physics. Once that is understood, it begins to make a whole lot of sense that all of the research available arrives at the same conclusion, in an accident or ambush the difference between success and failure is measured in tenths of seconds, and/or an increase or decrease in steering angle of a couple of degrees, and/or a speed differential of 2 MPH. With the difference between success and failure being so small, it is absurd to attempt to evaluate vehicle/driver performance just by observing the vehicle as it is driven through an exercise or scenario, or, worse yet, attempting to evaluate and coach from the passenger seat, where it is simply impossible to discern the dramatic effect a small variation in driver inputs is having on the vehicles outputs.  Scientifically and accurately measuring performance is really not that difficult – all it requires is a $200 on board computer (called a G Meter), a radar gun, perhaps a stop watch, a working knowledge of the laws of physics and the single most important component of all, – an open mind – it’s a practice that is largely shunned by the driver training community.  In turn, exercises are often conducted for the sake of conducting them, with no real thought given to developing or refining specific skill sets or, for that matter, how the exercise may apply to real world scenarios the student is likely to encounter. At its worse, this can be wholly counter-productive as certain exercises may have no practical application to the environments and emergencies a student may have to confront while behind the wheel.

 Future articles will discuss testing procedures. TSVDI uses a G Tech G Meters 

We also have tested the Vector G Meter

This is an article which I assume comes from a BMW Press Release. It is about the 2009 BMW AX Security Plus. As with other Press Releases I have seen from BMW it is written for the non security market.

 From the Press Release:

 “It is the first vehicle produced by a high-volume manufacturer to offer a security concept aimed at lessening the danger of attacks using the world’s most widely used handgun of the type AK 47”.

Mercedes and a few others manufactures have vehicles that meet that need.

 The vehicle is made in the Spartanburg plant in South Carolina; I’m not sure what I think about that.

 Like the other BMW press releases it mentions the seams and gaps in the AX Security Plus are armored, it has a spall proof windshield, and the suspension has been modified, like all that is something extra when in fact it is mandatory.

All the above does not take anything away from the vehicle. I did not see a price but, once you read through the marketing BS it is one hell of a vehicle.