Avi Yehezkel, Labor Party Member of Knesset, also serves as Deputy Transportation Minister, responsible (among other things) for the National Road Safety Authority. In reaction to the 2001 traffic fatality report, Yehezkel chastised the police for insufficient traffic law enforcement, and went so far as to refer to the Green Light patrol, founded in 1998 to serve as an adjunct to the traffic police, as incompetent.
When questioned by police and the media as his own driver was hauled off for questioning, he claimed that he was late for a meeting and that he was reading some documents during the drive. He was thus not paying attention to what his driver was doing.
The debate has thus been re-ignited in Israel regarding the causes of our incredibly high traffic mortality rate. The 2001 total of traffic deaths is more than twice the number of Israelis killed in terrorist attacks during the same period. While terrorism is a phenomenon that rightly attracts national and international horror, Israel’s rate of attrition on the highways is barely mentioned, even in local media. And while the debate among scholars and professionals centers around speed, the trend bespeaks a more worrisome fact of life in Israel: the people charged with making policy and enforcing it simply do not do their jobs.
Speed is certainly one factor contributing to the carnage on Israeli roads. But it is by no means the only one, and as someone who has been driving in Israel for the past number of years, I suggest that it is not even the main contributing factor.
In Israel’s urban and suburban areas, road quality is quite poor. On major thoroughfares, the multiple lanes necessary for smooth traffic flow are too narrow, and where such roads curve and traverse hilltops, as they do all too often in this country, passing is either impossible, or far too dangerous. The presence of large vehicles such as busses and trucks on narrow residential roads makes traffic that much more hazardous.
In rural areas and on highways, these problems are no less severe. The speed is higher, the traffic not as congested, but the hazards of narrow lanes, improperly built roads, and an excess of sharp curves and inclines makes driving plainly unsafe.
These factors combine with a distinct lack of manners on the Israeli roadways. Every single driver must be at his destination first, regardless of other traffic on the road or whether it is moving faster or slower. Tailgating, cutting off other drivers, aggressive passing, and a general lack of patience characterize the driver in Israel as in no other place in the world. And the police are as guilty of these infractions as everyone else. I have seen police cars move onto the shoulder to pass cars moving at five or ten kilometers above the speed limit, then slow down once they have passed.
Law enforcement is also problematic. In the past three years, the new Green Light traffic police adjunct has increased police presence on the roads. But most speed traps allow most speeding offenders to slip through. The police web site itself proudly announces that people driving within ten kilometers above the limit will not be ticketed. And while officers are stationed at certain strategic interchanges, giving tickets to motorists who perform a rolling stop at a stop sign, other drivers pass them right by at excessive speeds.
To this already volatile mix, add speed. The result is the death of one in every ten thousand Israelis every year.
Every so often, the topic comes up for debate, largely in the media. Politicians tend to ignore the issue, and law enforcement representatives decry the lack of manpower – totally ignoring the lack of interest they show for their job.
The people taking part in the debates often ignore the many contributing causes to Israel’s astronomical rate of road death and injury. They concentrate on speed. But most of the accidents and offenses I have seen had little or nothing to do with speed. They had to do with poor planning, tailgating, and improper driving habits, as described above.
Government committees have been formed to address the issue, reports have been issued, and documents drawn up. But the Deputy Transportation Minister spends more time reading the documents and reports than he spends actually doing something about the problem.
Avi Yehezkel should resign his position, or be forced out, in order to allow someone competent, someone who actually cares about it, to deal with the problem properly.
Copyright 2002. All rights reserved. Yehuda Poch is a journalist living in Israel. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission only.
