Early Sunday morning in Irvine, California, a McLaren 720S pulled away from a stoplight and, within seconds, was in pieces. James Wehr, 27, co-founder of South OC Cars & Coffee, one of the largest weekly car meets in the world, and Alexis Kramer, 22, both died at the scene. Investigators say speed was likely a factor. I won’t speculate beyond that; the family asked for privacy, and that’s worth honoring.
Around the same time, a story that’s become almost commonplace in a different corner of the internet: a young woman books a same-week flight across the country to meet someone she’s only spoken to online, for a date, with no background check, no shared itinerary, no safety net if things go wrong. No crash, no headline, just a level of risk most people would never accept in any other part of their life, taken on instinct instead of information.
Different situations. Same blind spot.
In both cases, the danger wasn’t a lack of capability, it was the absence of a deliberate pause to ask what could go wrong here, and have I actually prepared for it? A 720-horsepower car and an unverified stranger both reward respect and punish assumption. Confidence, familiarity, and good intentions don’t change the physics or the risk profile, they just make it easier to skip the step that would have caught the problem.
That gap is exactly what Blindspot Protection Group exists to close.
Vulnerability and risk assessments, before a trip, a meeting, a new hire, or a new relationship becomes routine, we identify the exposure most people don’t think to look for until it’s too late. Background investigations, the step that would have told that young woman who she was actually about to be alone with, thousands of miles from home. Executive protection and secure transport, built on the same principle as defensive driving: capability without a controlled plan around it is just risk waiting for a bad moment.
None of this is about living in fear. It’s about treating “probably fine” as a decision you make on purpose, with information, not a default you fall into because stopping to check feels inconvenient.
If you, your family, or your business are making decisions that carry real risk, a trip, a hire, a new relationship, a security posture, that’s exactly the conversation we have at Blindspot Protection Group.
Rest in peace, James and Lexi.
-Colby Pickering is the founder of Blindspot Protection Group, LLC, providing vulnerability assessments, executive protection, and secure transport for residential and commercial clients in Southwest Florida