SecurityDriver News

We have developed an iPhone Application on Distracted Driving. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) driver distractions are the leading cause of most vehicle crashes and near-crashes.  The App came about when we looked at a study released by the NHTSA and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI).  The study discovered that 80% of crashes and 65% of near-crashes involve some form of driver distraction – and the distraction occurred within three seconds before the vehicle crash!   For those in High Risk Security that number “three seconds” is familiar. It is the “Kill Zone”.

The Kill Zone Concept is used to train our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan to avoid a vehicle ambush. Our iPhone Application uses the same theory to explain and avoid the dangers of Distracted Driving.

The theory is simple; a Kill Zone is a time-distance relationship. How much time does the driver have and how close is the problem (distance)?  The Kill Zone is directly related to the speed of the vehicle when the incident occurs.

An example of how Kill Zones relate to Distracted Driving look at the following scenario – You are 300 feet from a traffic light moving at 40 mph which is 60 feet per second. You get a text message; it takes 3 seconds to read the message – that means you drove 180 feet (3 seconds x 60 fps) without looking at the road. 

You were 300 feet from the traffic light, but as you were reading the text message, you moved 180 feet. When you looked up from the text message, you are 120 feet (300 -180) from the traffic light that has now changed from yellow to red.

You are 120 feet in front of the red light and closing in at 60 fps.  You are in the Kill Zone, a time distance relationship, the distance is 120 feet and some quick arithmetic tells you that you have two seconds to react. And you are driving deeper into the kill zone.

If you can get you foot on the brake in a half-second (that’s fast), you will travel 30 feet (half of 60 fps).  So at the point of applying your brakes, you are 90 feet from the traffic light (the initial 120 feet minus the 30 feet it took to reach for the brake). 

You will have to stop a car moving at 40 MPH (60 feet a sec) in 1.5 seconds. Life is going to get terribly exciting.

Our App uses case studies in the form of presentations, similar to the one above, and offers lessons learned.  The objective is to keep you out of the kill zone. 

You can direct any questions or comments to

tonyscotti@securitydriver.com

lawrence.snow@sjcwebdesign.com

In the process of a putting together an iPhone Application about vehicle attacks I came across this You Tube video. It is a re-enactment of the 1978 Moro kidnapping.  At the time, the kidnapping of the highly respected elder statesman of Italian politics, Aldo Moro, shocked the world. This incident would be similar to the kidnapping of one of our former Presidents. Although the Moro attack occurred more than 30 years ago it is still a lesson learned scenario.  

This event (plus the Schleyer ambush) had a profound effect on the security community. To gain an understanding of the historical significance of this attack we need to examine the security industry the 70’s.

Some History – During the 1970’s these types of attacks had been occurring often in South America, the prevailing attitude was that it would never spread beyond those borders.  Although the terrorism experts at the time (there were maybe three of them), had all been predicting this type of attack was going to spread, and become prolific. No one paid much attention to them, and the general feeling was that the terrorist were not that good – and that if you put a guy with gun sitting next to the chauffer, and maybe some guys with more guns in a vehicle following the boss the problem is solved. At the time the general thinking of the non security community was that the enemy was not that smart.  The following is an actual comment from an executive “After all we are dealing with unsophisticated rabble”.

 Lessons –  Moro was one of the attacks that brought to light that terrorist actually plan what they do. You can see from this re-enactment that these guys, and girl, had their act together.

This was one of the attacks that made the “powers to be” come to the conclusion that –

 Having guys with guns with the boss doesn’t solve the problem – it creates a different problem

 We ought to train those guys that are protecting the principal – drivers and shooters should be trained to drive and shoot

Armored cars are a good thing – we are talking about 1970’s armored cars that were a lot less sophisticated than they are now.

The protection team was expendable

 This is a question – not a comment – have things changed that much in thirty years?  What do you think?