Some quick things to add to the discussion in the meantime, however...
When you approach problems like these, you have to deal with the most probable scenario's, and the most practical solutions first. This gives you a starting point and allows you to cover the most likely situations first in the most pragmatic way possible. You can get into more unlikely scenarios later if you would like, provided that they aren't completely speculative and out of the realm of possability.
In order to start with the most likely scenarios, you have to collect evidence of what is actually occuring when people are assaulted in a car. There may be other possible situations that you can think of in your head, but just because something is possible, that doesn't mean that it is actually happening in the manner of which you thought. You don't want to get into the pattern of coming up with solutions to problems that don't really exist (or rarely exist). This leads to speculative self-defense solutions at best.
So, here is an example of my process...
We start by breaking up these assaults into categories. I am sure that there are better terms for these, but we have impulsive spontanious incidents (road rage, guy gets out of his car and rushes yours; it was something spontatious in that you didn't foresee it and you have a short window of time to respond, and it was "impulsive" on the attacker part, in that he didn't plan to assault you specifically when he got in his car that day), planned spontanious incidents (old boyfriend was planning to assault you all day, and he catches you in your car at the parking garage after work and you have limited time to react), impulsive predictable incidents (road rage guy has gotten out of his car and just starts randomly yelling at bystanders. This was impulsive to him, but it is predictable to you that he is likely to assault you or another bystander, and you can therefore prepare), and planned predictable incidents (old boyfriend was planning to assault you all day, and is waiting for you in the parking garage. You see his car parked before you get to yours, so you have more time to decide your course of action).
Car assaults (I could say all assaults for that matter) fall into these 4 categories. Again, there are terms for these in certain circles; I am just going off the top of my head right now to get the basic ideas across.
What you want to be able to do as much as possible is reduce your chances of a spontanious incident from occuring. There is no magic technique here; when your sitting down in a car and your not driving away from the threat, you are vulnerable to various degrees. If the threat has the element of surprise to his advantage, especially if it is planned, you will be at a major disadvantage if you have to resort to physical skills to defend yourself.
So, you want to do things that will prevent the spontaious incident from occuring. Have someone walk you to your car if your ex boyfriend has indicated that he may try to hurt you. Look for pre-incident indicators. Glance in your backseat before you get in the car. Don't have your window rolled down and your door unlocked if someone has gotten out of their car and is acting erratic. Don't trap yourself, like pull into a parking area where you can get blocked in, if you've just been rear ended at night on a scarcely populated street. Etc., etc., etc. These things will prevent the need for any self-defense technique from the car. I would say that most car assaults can be prevented by taking simple and effective measures to prevent the spontatious incident.
Now, from the above categories and solutions, 99% of them will have nothing to do with martial technique. But from there we can get into that 1% of self-defense solutions that involve physical skills. Whether the skills are physical or not, when it comes to dealing with specific self-defense circumstances, I'll say again that we need to work off of what is probable, not possible.
For example, let's examine the situation of someone hiding in your backseat, awaiting ambush. What is the motivation for such a maneuver? It is either a quick assasination, or it is because they want something from you beside just your life (your keys and money, your body in terms of rape or kidnapping or torture, etc.). From this motivation, we can move through some likely scenarios depending on the possible victim.
But we can rule out unlikely scenarios as well, which would prevent us from coming up with solutions to problems that don't exist. So, going back to the "backseat ambush," there isn't a slew of serial backseat attackers that strike while people are driving. If you are driving, you are not likely to be attacked, because if you are killed or incapacitated then who will drive? Not only is this not happening statistically, but it doesn't make sense logically. So, "If I am driving down woodward and someone trys to garrote me with piano wire, I WOULD...." is really speculative. Now, someone may present a threat while you are driving in order to gain something else (like poke a gun into your side and tell you where you are going to take him, for example); although this is still unlikely statistically, this is at least more probable then the "highway garrote strikes again." Moving from this type of situation, you can put a reasonable fight plan together, as long as you have the understanding of the extreme disadvantage you are in that could have been prevented by simply being aware of preincident indicators in the first place.
To conclude, the point of this post is that there is a specific process of discovery and planning involved when it comes to assault prevention planning that rules out a lot of speculation and unpractical ideas very quickly. I am presenting some of that process (free of charge, aren't I nice?
) on a forum, but there is more then one way to skin a cat here. When it comes to approaching problems like these, you want to have a process in place, I think, that will rule out improbable situations and solutions, and that will allow you to get into the crux of what is actually needed for self-defense by todays standards.
All for now. Hopefully my post has been somewhat helpful...
Paul Janulis
