What Cities Can Do to Protect Public Spaces From Vehicle Attacks

The first few weeks of 2025 have been busy for Rob Reiter, a security consultant who specializes in protecting people from hostile vehicle attacks. It’s a brand of urban mayhem that ranges from storefront crashes to acts of terror like the one that occurred in New Orleans early on New Year’s Day, where a man plowed a rented pickup truck through crowds of revelers on Bourbon Street, killing 14 people and injuring at least 35.

Since then, Reiter has found himself doing a lot of interviews about what went wrong in New Orleans. This frustrates him. “Nobody calls me on the third ...