2 teens killed in high-speed crash laid to rest

Dudi Ben-Ami, 16, of Bat Yam, who drove the car, was laid to rest in Sderot, while his friend, Tomer Ziv, 16, buried in Rishon Lezion.

By YAAKOV LAPPIN
Teen Drivers Killed 311 (photo credit: Channel 10)
Teen Drivers Killed 311
(photo credit: Channel 10)
Two teenagers killed early on Wednesday when their car collided with a bus stop near Palmahim Beach, near Rehovot, were buried later in the day, as stunned relatives pondered how the driver had managed to get behind the wheel without a license.
David Ben-Ami, 16, from Bat Yam, who drove the car, was buried in Sderot, while his friend Tomer Ziv, 16, from Rishon Lezion, was buried in the city where he had lived.
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A third friend survived the accident and fled the scene. He later checked himself into a hospital for injuries sustained in the crash.
Firefighters and paramedics spent hours trying to extricate the bodies from the blue car’s twisted wreckage.
“He kept telling me he wouldn’t make it to 17. I told him to stop talking nonsense,” Ben-Ami’s sobbing father, Ronen, told Channel 2 News.
“I would give my whole life if he could live for another minute.”
Ben-Ami had taken the keys to a car owned by his father’s girlfriend, without telling his father, relatives said.
Traffic Police investigators said the car had likely been speeding, and may have been trying to overtake a motorcycle on a road leading to the beach before the teenagers lost control and ploughed into the bus stop.
CCTV camera footage shows the car driving behind a motorcycle minutes before the crash.
According to figures released by the Or Yarok Road Safety institute, 13 percent of teenagers polled have admitted to driving without a license.
Four hundred five youngsters between the ages of 12 and 18 took part in the survey.
Or Yarok said greater parental responsibility and increased police enforcement were needed.
The Israel Police said 232 youths had been arrested so far this year for driving without a license, and called on parents to exercise more control over their children.
In another incident on Wednesday evening, a 30-year-old man was killed in a car accident in the Jordan Valley. Magen David Adom paramedics responded to a two-car collision on the Jordan Valley highway at 7 p.m., where they found the man trapped in his car. He appeared to have been there for some time. They succeeded in freeing him from the wreckage, but a doctor pronounced him dead at the scene.
A second man, lightly injured, was taken to the hospital.
Melanie Lidman contributed to this report.