In the past, getting out of the Kill Zone meant moving the vehicle 100 meters or less, but in a high-risk environment getting out of the Kill Zone means moving the vehicle considerably more than 100 meters. Even if you are in a moving vehicle and your adversary is in a moving vehicle there is still a Kill Zone that moves with you. But no matter how you look at it the Kill Zone is a time-distance relationship. How much time do I have and how close are they (distance)? Although the bad guys have set up the Kill Zone, you as a driver can control the time and distance. The Kill Zone is directly related to the speed of the vehicle when the incident occurs.
As we drive, we measure time and distance by using the car’s speedometer. I know this is simplistic but if your speedometer indicates you are moving at the rate of 75 MPH (121 KPH) that means that in one hour (time) you will go 75 miles (121 Kilometers) (distance) However, the speedometer is not the best reference to talk about Kill Zones. Most of us think in units of miles per hour (MPH) or kilometers per hour (KPH). But an ambush takes place in a matter of feet or meters and seconds. It’s important to understand what those seconds mean and how to use them to your advantage.
We need to rethink our frame of reference when we talk about a vehicle attack. If you are traveling 75 MPH (121 KPH) you are traveling 110 feet per second (FPS), or 34 meters per second (MPS). To convert miles per hour to feet per second, multiply the miles per hour figure by 1.47 or to make it a bit easier 1.5. To convert KPH to MPS multiply by .28. As an example if you are driving 80 MPH you travel 117.6 Feet per Second – 80 MPH is equal to 128.8 KPH which you are moving at the rate of 36.5 Meters Per Second.
Let’s put this to use. You’re driving down the road – fat – dumb and happy. Your mind wanders – you are thinking about that gourmet meal that awaits you after you return from this run. You divert your attention away from the road for three seconds. For the hell of it count to three – not a long time. If you were going 70 MPH or 113 KPH you just traveled 315 feet or 95 meters without watching the road or worse yet – looking for bad guys. It goes without saying – you must be alert at all times.
Let’s put this Feet Per Second thing to another use. 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. If you are moving at 70 MPH and it takes 2.5 seconds for the driver to react, the vehicle will move approximately 257 feet before any of the vehicle’s controls are moved. Far be it from me to disagree with the scientist but 33 years of teaching high-risk driving tells me that with practice and good visual techniques that number can be lowered to 1 to 1.5 seconds. In fact, anything that gives you as little as a half of a second can be the difference between surviving and not surviving. At 70 MPH half of a second gives you about 50 feet of extra space.
When the driver knows they have to brake, they can achieve the best possible reaction time. Dr. Green says that the best estimate is 0.7 second. Of this, 0.5 is perception and 0.2 are movement, the time required to release the accelerator and to depress the brake pedal.
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 and a few tenths of a second faster for straight-ahead obstacles.
The first thing you want to take away from this is that you don’t want to be in a vehicle sitting next to the average driver. Ensure that the person holding on to the wheel has had some driver training that was a standalone training program that lasted more than a day, did not have 25 students and four cars – and it would be nice if their driving skill was actually measured. And as far as training is concerned here is some other bad news – driving fast on a race track in a sedan has nothing to do with driving fast in a heavily loaded armored SUV in Iraq.
The next thing you want to take away is that the quicker you can see the problem the more distance you have to work with. If you are not alert, there is very little you can do to survive the problem. Anything that causes a delay in perception of the problem will add to your chances of a failure. Everyone in the team needs to know what to do – understand what their responsibilities are – and carry them out quickly and efficiently. Assign each team member an area of responsibility.