The vehicle used in the Carcass training disaster was an older Toyota 4Runner. The 4Runner earned a 3-star (out of 5) rating from NHTSA with a 20 to 30% rollover risk.

The crash test data from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) have shown that small increases in speed can have huge effects on crash outcomes as shown in their new tests conducted by the AAA Foundation for traffic safety. They found that slightly higher speeds were enough to increase the driver’s risk of severe injury or death.

Whether driving down the highway, around corners or trying to navigate out of a potentially dangerous scenario, the vehicle driver combination must operate within the laws of physics and specifically within Sir Isaac Newton’s three laws of motion.
An understanding of vehicle dynamics creates the platform for a standard for one of the most important aspects of executive protection – secure transportation.
It is ISDA’s opinion that many training providers take liberty with the phrase Vehicle Dynamics. This opinion is not a criticism but an observation.
Vehicle Dynamics is a scientific and objective approach to Secure Transportation, Security Driving, and Training.

We strongly suggest that anyone who attends a Security Driving training program is measured in accordance with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 135. This is the standard that is used to measure vehicle braking performance. As a security driver, you must be able to perform at a much higher level than “minimum” (it is what you get paid to do).

When moving through any scenario the driver is managing time and distance. In an emergency, survival comes down to how much time and distance do you have to avoid the problem.

To ensure the safety and security of the principal, security drivers and secure transportation providers should understand that all vehicles have inherent characteristics that decrease the performance of the vehicle, and create a dangerous scenario for the principal. One of those characteristics is the vehicle’s static stability factor (SSF).

For decades our mantra has been, “When Stuff Happens, You Can’t Be Average.” This is the first in a series of articles that will cover that moment in time “When Stuff Happens.”

When a vehicle is approaching its limit of adhesion, a driver has two conflicting signals. The first signal is the steering wheel getting light, which means that it requires less effort to increase steering input (turn the steering wheel). The reason for this is that the adhesion the tire makes with the road is getting increasingly smaller – quickly.

The second signal is the vehicle load the driver feels at the back of the seat (their butt), which at the limit of adhesion is high.

Fully Active Suspension Technology – A video about the MB suspension system. This is engineering at its best.

Driving is inputs and outputs. A driver applies input to the vehicle via steering – braking – and acceleration and combinations thereof. The output is…

Electronic Stability Control (ESC) is a computer that takes over control of the vehicle when the vehicle’s path is not what the driver intended it to be. For those of us who have lost control of a car, we know that it’s that first twitch of the car that tells us that we are about to have an exciting experience. That twitch is information the car is sending to us. For some, interpreting this information is second nature, and for others it’s like trying to understand Swahili.