A 33-year-old man drove his car into pedestrians in a busy Leipzig shopping district on Monday, killing two people and seriously injuring three others in what authorities believe was a deliberate attack, the Associated Press reported. The driver, a German citizen, was detained at the scene and is under investigation on suspicion of murder and attempted murder.
The incident prompted the wire service to compile a list of major vehicle-ramming cases from recent history, highlighting a recurring pattern of attacks in which a vehicle itself is the primary weapon. The roundup, published May 4, spans more than two decades and includes at least 20 incidents across North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
The cases vary dramatically in motive and context. AP reported that an Islamic extremist drove a truck into a New York City bike path in 2017, killing eight; a man radicalized by far-right ideas rammed worshippers outside a London mosque the same year, killing one; and a Saudi-born doctor who supported Germany’s far‑right AfD party killed five at a Christmas market in Magdeburg in December 2024. In July 2025, a car plowed into a crowd outside a Los Angeles nightclub, injuring at least 37 people; the 29-year-old driver faces dozens of attempted murder charges.
Other attacks were not tied to organized ideology. In 2024, a driver upset about his divorce killed 35 people at a sports complex in Zhuhai, China. In 2021, Darrell Brooks Jr. drove his SUV through a Christmas parade in Waukesha, Wisconsin, killing six; his motive was a dispute with an ex‑girlfriend. The deadliest single attack in the list occurred in Nice, France, in 2016, when a Tunisian‑born man drove a truck into a Bastille Day crowd, killing 86.
The AP compilation also includes the 2025 Vancouver festival attack that killed 11, the 2017 Charlottesville car attack by a white supremacist that killed one woman, and the 2018 Toronto van attack in which an “incel” community member killed 10 pedestrians, mostly women.
No single profile unites the perpetrators. The list includes jihadist‑inspired attackers, right‑wing extremists, and individuals with severe untreated mental illness. The method — weaponizing a common vehicle against crowds — has become a recurrent feature of mass‑casualty violence globally, capable of inflicting high fatalities with minimal preparation.