Approximately one person dies in a road accident in Israel every day, data shows. Thousands get injured every year. A mind-boggling number, families shattered, and victims whose names we soon forget. The conclusion is simple and tragic.
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Two hundred and twenty-three Israelis have died in accidents since the beginning of this year, and without public pressure, another 127 will join them, and thousands more will get injured, by the end of 2022.
If social media is any indicator, our country's leaders seem to hardly address the matter, and certainly not on a daily basis but rather at times of crisis, like this past week, when road accidents claimed the lives of 19 Israelis.
A lack of a national plan to combat road accidents is the main reason behind such failure. Lack of governance, planning, response and action is reflected on the road. Our leaders only address issues that must be tackled regardless if there is public pressure.
For years, entities have known the risk factors behind serious and fatal accidents. Some were not addressed due to the financial interests of those in power and tacking the rest simply required more manpower and one central state body in charge.
None of the ministries related to the matter – the Transport and Road Safety Ministry, Justice Ministry, or Public Affairs Ministry – have a comprehensive agency to tackle road accidents. It seems the government has given up without even trying.
The police's traffic division, whose employees are dedicated, professional, and committed to this struggle by virtue of being at the scene of tragedies every day, has been greatly weakened in recent years, and the lack of manpower on the roads is evident.
Below are some key statistics on road safety from 2021.
Buses are involved in 8% of fatal accidents, 50% of which involve injuring pedestrians. Trucks are the cause of 19% of fatal accidents. And despite these shocking numbers, Israel has no digital tachograph to record and transmits a particular vehicle's driving and stopping data in real-time, to a control center of the vehicle owner or a database.
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Almost half (49%) of fatal accidents involved Arab drivers, with 84% of these accidents being the fault of the driver. That accounts for about 100 deaths every year. Pedestrians are killed in 30% of fatal accidents, 35% of them at crosswalks.
About 400,000 electric vehicles were involved in 5% of fatal accidents from 2010 to 2020, a major up-and-coming market.
I will end with the words of Yaniv Meoded, who lost his two daughters in a traffic accident, and later his pregnant wife, who was in a coma, in December 2021.
"I had a wonderful family, and in one moment everything turned upside down ... May we appreciate the simple and small things that have become routine for us."
