SA VIP protectors flout all rules

Speed really does kill – particularly when you’re guarding VIPs. But South Africa’s “blue light brigades” all break the basic rule of close protection on the roads: don’t speed.

A close protection security specialist said: “Just look at how the American Secret Service (who protect the country’s president) do it. They travel slowly. So do the people looking after (Russian President) Vladimir Putin. They’re some of the best in the world at what they do.”

The specialist said travelling at speed with a VIP passenger “severely limit” the ability of the protection team to control their vehicles, anticipate trouble and implement IA (Immediate Action) drills.

“It’s common sense: the faster you go, the less reaction time you have. And protection’s golden rule is about giving yourself time and space to react to any threat.”

The specialist said that “tactical driving” training meant protection officers would learn skills in defensive and offensive driving.

Defensive driving includes reading road conditions ahead and to the sides as the vehicle is moving, as well as vehicle control (including handbrake and “J-turns”), while offensive driving entails skills like ramming other vehicles or roadblocks out of the way.

If VIPs are travelling in modified or armoured vehicles, their drivers would require training with that vehicle, “because an armoured vehicle does not handle the same way”.

When transporting VIPs around cities, many protection units work in groups of sedan cars – often all the same nondescript colour.

With tinted windows in each vehicle, it is impossible to see in which car the VIP is travelling.

The cars are normally modified in a way which is not noticeable from the outside: like a solid metal guard around the radiator, which means the car can be used as a battering ram.

Experienced close protection personnel d0 not travel in a “obvious convoy” with “things like flashing lights, which only tell people ahead of you there is a high-value asset coming their way.”

The specialist said one of the first things you learn in tactical driving is to reverse into a parking space. That means you can make a getaway in one fluid move.

“If you practice that in normal driving, you might well be able to escape a hijacking…” – brendans@citizen.co.za