Would concrete barriers STOP a terror truck attack? Researchers shocked by test results
RESEARCHERS have carried out tests on the effectiveness of concrete barriers to protect against terrorist truck attacks - and found them to be close to useless.
Germans stage crash test to see if barriers can stop truck attacks
Local authorities and event organisers have been increasingly using the barriers since last July’s attack in Nice when Tunisian delivery driver Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel killed more than 80 people as he ploughed a rented 19-tonne lorry into Bastille Day crowds in the southern French resort.
A copycat attack on a Christmas market in German capital Berlin in December left 12 people dead and 56 others injured.
But tests on the barriers carried out by German current affairs show Umschau appear to show they would fail to prevent similar attacks in the future.
The anti-terrorist barriers were pushed like billiard balls in both cases
Researchers drove a 10-tonne truck into the barriers at 30mph and found the 2.5 tonne concrete blocks were simply pushed aside by the power of the vehicle, which only came to a halt when it hit a wall.
Tester Marcus Gärtner said: “It does not matter whether the truck hits the barriers diagonally or frontally: the anti-terrorist barriers were pushed like billiard balls in both cases and the impact was relatively low.”
Renè Demmler from Dresden Police said: "This makes it quite clear that more resources are needed to reduce the risk to a greater extent."
Saxony's Minister of the Interior, Markus Ulbig said concrete barriers are only part of a security concept.
He said: ”No one claims that they guarantee absolute security.
“However, concrete barriers reduce the risk of damage.
“In principle, there is no 100 per cent protection against terrorist attacks."
Tobias Becker, managing director of barrier manufacturer Becker Bodenbaustoffe, said he was not surprised by the results of the test.
He said: “My company is not providing security concepts but stones. How these are then deployed is a matter for the municipalities.
“To simply order bollards to get security is bit of an eyewash.”
Thomas Pampel from the concrete manufacturer Stoneland Hamburg said using bollards was aimed at reassuring the public.
He said: "This is a pure placebo effect."