Police need to vigorously enforce law and judges need to throw the book at those who disregard it.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFFcar accident 88(photo credit: )
Thinking about crossing the street? You might want to consider that Israel is one of the most dangerous countries for pedestrians. Of course, you're little better off behind the wheel. More people have been killed in road accidents than in our nation's wars.
The latest rash of hit-and-runs, crashes, collisions and killings may be a statistical fluke, but they are part of a culture of lawlessness on our roads that must be combated.
It's convenient - maybe even technically correct - to blame road carnage on inappropriate speed limits, lack of traffic cameras, policing, weather, infrastructure, the pressures of Israeli life - or any of a slew of other variables. None of these, however, absolves the individual from taking personal responsibility.
The blame for the appalling mayhem belongs to the Israeli driver for his and her behavior behind the wheel. Devil-may-care negligence, lack of elementary etiquette, pushiness and unbelievable ignorance of basic traffic rules all cause injuries and claim lives.
THE SITUATION is exacerbated by changing social mores: binge drinking (once unknown in this country), clubbing until the wee hours, and the prevalence of higher, wider, pointlessly powerful SUVs that appeal to the machismo of both sexes.
Liora Aronson, mother of Meital who was killed by an SUV driver in Tel Aviv last week while trying to cross Ibn Gvirol Boulevard on a pedestrian crosswalk, described the thug behind the wheel as a "drunk and drugged murderer" whose parents "armed him with a destructive weapon and sent him to pull the trigger."
In Meital's case the police should have done better. While they were attempting to give the SUV's owner a breathalyzer test, his two equally intoxicated friends raced away in the vehicle; nobody gave chase. Had they been terrorist suspects, the police would have pulled out all stops. Yet, for the average Israeli, vehicular manslaughter is no less a threat than terrorism.
It's time for the police to rigorously enforce the law. Police in Jerusalem recently discouraged a citizen from filing a complaint against a driver who ran a red light and smashed into her vehicle on the grounds that "no one was hurt." Police should saturate nightlife districts on weekends with personnel. Delinquent drivers need to be removed from the roads and their cars confiscated - the law allows for this.
Prosecutors must cease operating in slow motion; judges have to ditch their inclinations toward sentencing leniency. There can be no more travesties like the 8.5 months served by celebrity lawyer Avigdor "Dori" Klagsblad for the April 2006 killing of a young mother, Yevgenia Wechsler, and her five-year-old son, Arthur.
A recidivist offender, Klagsblad amassed 23 violations before smashing - without ever braking - into the back of Wechsler's Fiat, which was waiting for the traffic light to change at Tel Aviv's Derech Namir and Einstein intersection.
Judges need to fit the punishment to the crime. Obligatory prison sentences for DUI would be a good beginning. Where substance abuse is accompanied by gross recklessness, it may be advisable to charge drivers with manslaughter. The 16-year sentence handed down to Yaron Bracha - for killing six people at the Ginaton junction near Lod last year while speeding and high on alcohol and drugs - sends the kind of signal we're talking about.
THE PROBLEM on our roads is fixable. Israelis are trainable. We were taught not to pick wildflowers and not to smoke on buses. We are learning not to waste water. We can learn to drive like civilized human beings.
Re-education efforts are already underway with public service advertisements. But this campaign needs to be spectacularly expanded. Israelis need to be re-taught the basics: don't tailgate; don't blind other drivers with your high beams; don't pass on the right; stop signs are not optional; red lights are certainly not optional; yield the right-of-way, signal... Maybe one day we can move on to "don't park your car on the sidewalk."
It's going to take a long time to effect necessary change. In the interim, police need to vigorously enforce the rules of the road and judges need to throw the book at those who thumb their noses at our safety.
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