Vehicle Ramming Attacks Are Rising — Why Hostile Vehicle Mitigation Is Now Essential for Canadian Businesses

On April 26, 2025, a man drove an SUV into a crowd at the Lapu-Lapu Day festival in Vancouver, killing 11 people and injuring at least 32 others. The victims ranged in age from five to sixty-five. It was the deadliest vehicle-ramming attack in Canadian history — surpassing the 2018 Toronto van attack that killed 11 on Yonge Street.

Seven years earlier, on September 30, 2017, a vehicle-ramming attack struck Edmonton when Abdulahi Sharif stabbed a police officer outside a football game, then drove a U-Haul into four pedestrians during a police chase through downtown. The attack was classified as an act of terrorism.

These are not isolated incidents. They are part of a global pattern that security professionals have been warning about for over a decade — and the threat is accelerating.

Vehicles have become the weapon of choice for individuals seeking to cause mass casualties with minimal planning, minimal cost, and minimal risk of detection before the attack.— Mineta Transportation Institute, *Update on Vehicle Rammings*, September 2025

The Global Acceleration

Vehicle ramming attacks have surged worldwide. The method is devastatingly simple: steal or rent a vehicle, find a crowd, and drive into it. No weapons to purchase. No explosives to build. No co-conspirators to coordinate with. The barrier to entry is a driver's license.

Recent major incidents include:

Why This Matters for Canadian Businesses and Public Spaces

After the 2018 Toronto van attack, the City of Toronto published official Hostile Vehicle Mitigation (HVM) Guidelines for private property owners and launched a dedicated HVM Grant program to fund crash-rated bollard installations at community organizations serving populations at risk of hate-motivated incidents.

After the 2025 Vancouver attack, a joint City-VPD review recommended that Vancouver develop comprehensive measures to mitigate vehicle attacks at public events — including mandatory risk assessments and physical barriers.

The pattern is clear: every major attack triggers reactive infrastructure spending. The question is whether your property, event space, or public gathering area will be protected before or after it becomes a target.

Locations that need HVM protection include:

Understanding Crash-Rated Bollard Standards

Not all bollards provide the same level of protection. Standard security bollards — the type used at most commercial properties — stop vehicles at parking-lot speeds (15–30 km/h). But hostile vehicle mitigation requires crash-rated bollards that are tested and certified to stop much larger vehicles at much higher speeds.

Three international standards govern crash-rated bollard certification:

Penetration ratings are equally important. A bollard might stop a vehicle but allow it to push through several metres — potentially still reaching pedestrians behind the barrier. The best-rated bollards achieve P1 classification (less than 1 metre penetration after impact).

For most Canadian commercial and municipal applications, ASTM F2656 M30/P1 provides appropriate protection — stopping a 6,800 kg vehicle at 48 km/h with less than 1 metre of post-impact movement.

What Toronto Got Right — And What Others Can Learn

After the 2018 Yonge Street attack, Toronto became one of the first Canadian cities to take proactive HVM measures:

1. 1Published official HVM Guidelines for private property owners — providing a framework for threat assessment and bollard specification
2. 2Launched an HVM Grant program — funding crash-rated barrier installations at not-for-profit organizations serving communities at risk
3. 3Required Threat, Vulnerability, and Risk Assessments (TVRAs) — professional evaluations conducted by qualified security consultants before HVM funding is approved
4. 4Installed permanent HVM infrastructure at key public spaces — including concrete planters, steel bollards, and jersey barriers at high-pedestrian-traffic areas

The City of Toronto's approach demonstrates the gold standard: proactive assessment, funded installation, and ongoing maintenance. Most Canadian cities have not followed suit.

The Alberta Gap

Alberta has experienced a confirmed vehicle-ramming terrorism attack (Edmonton, 2017) and operates major outdoor events — the Calgary Stampede, Edmonton K-Days, Heritage Festival, Taste of Edmonton — that draw hundreds of thousands of pedestrians into spaces that are accessible by vehicle.

Yet Alberta has no provincial HVM guidelines, no municipal HVM grant programs, and no standardized requirement for crash-rated barriers at public events or high-risk properties.

This represents a significant gap. The question is not whether another vehicle attack will occur — the global trend makes that statistically likely. The question is whether the targets will be protected when it happens.

The Cost of HVM Protection

Crash-rated bollard installations cost more than standard commercial bollards, but the investment is proportional to the threat:

For a typical perimeter — a festival street closure, a pedestrian plaza, or a building frontage — a crash-rated bollard installation ranges from $25,000 to $100,000 depending on the number of units, soil conditions, and utility conflicts.

Compare that to the cost of a single successful attack: lives lost, hundreds injured, millions in emergency response, lawsuits, insurance claims, and the permanent damage to a community's sense of safety. The math is not close.

What Property Owners, Event Organizers, and Municipalities Should Do Now

1. 1Conduct a Threat, Vulnerability, and Risk Assessment (TVRA) — identify which areas of your property or event space are accessible to vehicles and assess the threat level based on location, profile, and crowd density
2. 2Engage a qualified HVM consultant — crash-rated barrier specification requires expertise in vehicle dynamics, soil engineering, and security threat modelling
3. 3Specify the right standard — match the bollard rating (M30, M40, M50) to the realistic threat. Most commercial applications need M30/P1; critical infrastructure may need M50
4. 4Consider both permanent and temporary solutions — retractable bollards and surface-mounted barriers provide flexibility for event spaces that need vehicle access at other times
5. 5Document your due diligence — a professional TVRA and certified HVM installation demonstrates that you've met your duty of care. In a legal context, this matters enormously
6. 6Advocate for municipal HVM programs — if your city doesn't have an HVM grant program like Toronto's, make the case. The cost of proactive protection is a fraction of reactive spending after an attack

The First Line of Defence

Bollards don't prevent intent. They don't stop radicalization, they don't detect threats, and they don't replace intelligence and policing. But they do one thing that nothing else can: they physically stop a vehicle from reaching people.

In Vancouver, 11 people died because there was no barrier between the road and the festival crowd. In New Orleans, 15 people died because the bollards on Bourbon Street had been removed during a construction project. In Magdeburg, a car entered the Christmas market through a gap in the security bollard perimeter.

Every one of these attacks succeeded because of an absence or gap in physical barriers. The technology to prevent them exists, is proven, and is available today. The only variable is whether we deploy it.