British body armour manufacturer PPSS Group is urging private security professionals as well as law enforcement officers to ensure they are wearing body armour offering certified spike protection.
Protection with body armour
According to the company’s CEO Robert Kaiser, spike protection cannot be guaranteed with all body armour, “Weapons like ice picks, sharpened screwdrivers, spiked clubs, and hypodermic needles can penetrate them if they are not offering specific protection from such threat.”
Organised crime and attacks
Society has changed, and some will argue not for the better. Robert Kaiser further comments, “Besides a global rise of knife crime, and we also have to accept those sometimes incredibly brutal attacks have become more frequent over the past ten years.”
“We can clearly see a change in the type of edged weapons now being used in organised crime and terrorism. Many blades perform very similarly to a spike; they have been specifically engineered to enter another person’s body using minimum effort, with little or no resistance.”
Double-edged attacks
Attacks using double-edged blades like the ones below are becoming more and more frequent these days, partly because they are so easy to purchase in the UK and most other countries.
Double-edged blades are exceptionally difficult to protect from. Therefore certified spike protection is crucial, as there is physical evidence that body armour can withstand such a threat.
Certified spike protection
Robert Kaiser is adamant, certified protection from spiked weapons is essential in today’s security industry. “Body armour without certified spike protection will be useless in the event of an attack using some of these truly horrific spiked weapons.”
“Supplying or selling body armour without certified spike protection will without any question result in either serious injury or even death to frontline professionals at some point in the future.”
Stab resistant body armour
PPSS Group has recently launched a new generation of stab-resistant body armour made from high-performance carbon fibre composite, offering certified stab, spike, and impact protection.
