The Transportation Ministry must check the effectiveness of auto inspections,
Knesset Economics Subcommittee to Fight Road Accidents chairman Hamed Amer
(Yisrael Beytenu) said on Tuesday, following an accident near Tiberias in which
a family of eight was killed.
“We don’t want an entire family to die just
because their car was not properly inspected,” Amer said at a meeting on road
safety.
Amer instructed the Transportation Ministry’s chief scientist
Dr. Amir Ziv-Av to investigate why the car’s brakes failed, only three
months after they passed inspection.
Ziv-Av gave an overview of possible
inexpensive short-term improvements to road safety, such as lowering speed
limits within cities to 20-30 km/h, clearly marking crosswalks and trimming
plants that block road signs.
He also said the amount of road accidents
per capita in Israel is close to the average for the OECD, but that reducing
speed limits by 10 percent could save dozens of lives each year.
In
addition, Ziv-Av called for the Transportation Ministry to publicize the dangers
of riding motorcycles, saying that only 25% of motorcyclists under age 24 were
not in road accidents.
“Dozens of lives can be saved each year by raising
awareness,” he said.
Amer asked Ziv-Av to prepare a report on ways these
steps can be taken.
In a subsequent meeting, the subcommittee chairman
discussed road safety near schools, asking that the Road Safety Authority and
Transportation and Education Ministries study the streets surrounding every
school in Israel, point out problems and suggest solutions.
The Road
Safety Authority and Transportation Ministry agreed to Amer’s request and said
it is already working on making roads near schools safer.