Number of cars used as weapons
Executive summary
There is no single, authoritative global tally of “cars used as weapons” across all contexts; published research and watchdog reporting instead offer segmented counts and trends — for example, the Combating Terrorism Center counted 18 terrorist vehicular-ramming incidents between 2014 and March 2025 [1], while U.S. interagency guidance reported “over a dozen” malicious or intentional vehicle rammings tied to protests in the United States since May 2020 [2]. Scholarly reviews show a clear increase in the tactic in recent decades but stop short of producing one definitive total [3].
1. The question being asked — what “number” means and why one figure is elusive
“Number of cars used as weapons” can mean wildly different things depending on scope: global vs. national, terrorism vs. criminality vs. protest-related violence, and whether vehicle-borne explosives are included; major datasets and reviews adopt different definitions and timeframes, which prevents a single aggregated figure from existing in the sources provided [3] [4].
2. The best concrete counts available in the reporting: targeted slices, not a global sum
A focused count cited by Combating Terrorism Center identifies 18 vehicular ramming attacks classed as terrorism between 2014 and March 2025, with 83% attributed to jihadis in that sample and the remainder to other extremist ideologies [1]; separately, U.S. federal materials note “over a dozen” malicious or intentional vehicle rammings during protests in the United States since May 2020, a statistic aimed at first‑responder planning rather than academic totals [2].
3. Longer-term academic analyses show the tactic’s rise but avoid a single headline number
Retrospective studies using the Global Terrorism Database and other sources chart vehicle-based terrorism from 1970–2019 and document a transition from rare occurrences to a common, lethal tactic in Western countries prior to COVID‑19, but those studies report trends, injury profiles and demographics rather than producing a single global vehicle-count to answer “how many cars” overall [3] [4].
4. Landmark events anchor the narrative — why counts matter politically and operationally
High-casualty incidents such as the 2016 Nice truck attack reshaped threat perception and prompted intensified documentation and mitigation efforts around vehicles-as-weapons, an effect underscored in counterterrorism and transportation-security reporting [5] [6]; these episodes drive both expanded counting and securitization of public space, which can create incentives for agencies to emphasize certain figures in operational guidance [2].
5. Competing framings, agendas and practical limits of the sources
Source agendas vary: academic papers aim for methodological rigor and trend analysis [3], counterterrorism centers catalog ideologically motivated attacks [1], and government toolboxes emphasize immediate operational threats to first responders [2]; none of the sources provided attempts a comprehensive global count covering all motives, contexts and timeframes, a limitation that means a single definitive “number of cars used as weapons” is not supported by the reporting at hand [4] [3].
6. Bottom line for readers following the numbers
If the question seeks a single global tally, the available sources do not provide one; if the question seeks defensible, cited slices of the phenomenon, the best-supported figures in the supplied reporting are: 18 terrorist vehicular-ramming incidents from 2014–March 2025 documented by the Combating Terrorism Center [1], and “over a dozen” protest-related vehicle rammings in the U.S. since May 2020 noted in interagency guidance [2], supplemented by broader academic findings that the tactic rose markedly in prevalence and lethality in the 2010s [3] [5].