'Wild, irresponsible' driving kills five travelers

By REBECCA ANNA STOIL
Five people were killed and another five injured near Tiberias on Friday night in a collision that police said was due to "wild, irresponsible driving" on the part of one of the drivers involved in the crash. Yelena Gorski, 30, and her 11-year-old daughter Victoria were among the five passengers of a Fiat Uno that overturned on the road between Tiberias and Poriya, and were killed immediately. Neither the mother nor the daughter was wearing a seatbelt, and the force of the collision threw them out of the car, leaving their bodies on the roadway. The other three passengers, including 26-year-old Alexander Konitzov were also pronounced dead at the scene. All five of the victims were from Karmiel, and the publication of the remaining two names awaited notification of family members who live in the former Soviet Union. The five were en route home after spending a day at one of the Kinneret's beaches. Supt. Uzi Hadar, head of the Amakim Subdistrict traffic police said that the accident occurred when the driver of the Fiat swerved into the opposite lane, possibly to pass a second car. When he noticed a vehicle approaching, he apparently attempted a hard turn back into his lane, but lost control of the car, which spun, rammed into the second car, and flipped over on to its roof. The five passengers in the second car, all members of the same family from Kibbutz Shaar Hagolan were lightly injured and evacuated to nearby Poriya Hospital. Two of the injured passengers were children, but police said that all of the victims from the second car were in good condition. Police took a blood sample from the body of the Fiat's driver to determine whether he was intoxicated at the time of the crash. While it is standard procedure to do so in the case of all fatal collisions, Hadar said that they suspected alcohol may have been a factor in the crash, as police found beer bottles in the car's wreckage. Cmdr. Shahar Ayalon, head of the Traffic Division of the Israel Police, made a personal appearance at the scene of the fatal crash in order to see with his own eyes the impact of poor driving. In response to allegations that police ignored calls from a concerned citizen reporting a similar vehicle driving recklessly near one of the Kinneret beaches, Hadar said that the calls were placed to police around 2 p.m., over six hours before the collision. In that case, Hadar said, the suspicious car entered a beach and apparently parked, but police searching for the vehicle failed to locate it.