Not long after that, I got involved in designing and refurbishing with two shops in my state that specialized in armored vehicles. During the work, I became friends with the owner, who runs many other businesses.

While not a self-proclaimed prepper, he has a lot of the same mindset as we do. In all likelihood, this is from having worked almost three decades in the field of personal safety. Besides, he's got ex-police officers and ex-militaries working for him and consults with public security agents of all kinds frequently.

He offered to let me test a car from his fleet for a period of time.

He also managed to fill me a spot in a two-week defensive driving course, if I would accept it. Of course, I did.

I figured this would be a great opportunity to add a survival skill to my "resume." I'll be talking about what I learned at the course (and also about personal safety while driving) in a future article.

he world is not getting any safer. Much of what is common practice around here can be useful for all kinds of preppers no matter what type of car they drive or where they live. So stay tuned.

Here are my impressions after a few months of driving around in a rolling fortress.

The car

My friend got me a gasoline-powered AWD mid-sized SUV equipped with Level III-A ballistic protection. It's a 2015 model but with low mileage and looks like new. Many second-hand luxury cars and SUVs have low mileage and are rather well conserved.