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Photo: Ahiya Raved
Fight accidents US-style
Only way to reduce number of accidents is to make offenders pay more insurance
All the talk about curbing the wave of road accidents here is futile. When there is a law, people obey. If they know to expect an appropriate punishment, they obey even more. As courts in Israel are prevented by our wise legal system from severely punishing drivers, judges tend to go easy on drivers in their verdicts.
There is one way that succeeded in the United States, and it's almost unused here. In the US, they don't attempt to just educate drivers. This helps as much as using an enema fights cancer. We need to threaten, as we do with murderers.
In the US, if a person is caught committing a traffic violation, he is immediately called to face trail. He will of course make his arguments, and the judges, who are accustomed to such arguments, may chuckle. The driver will get his regular punishment and keep on driving, but when the time comes to renew his car insurance, he will discover the price has been doubled – and that's plenty of money.
After another traffic violation, the insurance price may triple or even grow five-fold. After he pays thousands of dollars for insurance, he will no longer try to kill people at crosswalks, like we do here. He will drive carefully, because people usually don't like to pay plenty of money. And if he is caught without insurance, he will go to jail.
Here, we talk a lot. We threaten, but with no stick. Merciful judges are prevented from hitting drivers in their pockets, and do not wish to hurt their jobs. It's true that we'll need more police officers for this purpose, but we can do it without them. It would be enough to come up with a sort of reserve service for veteran police officers or home front defense officials who would be glad to do this.
The drivers will find lawyers to make their arguments, and the judges will say that perhaps there is not enough evidence, but that the testimonies of the inspectors are rather credible. Therefore, the punishment won't be harsh and the drivers will go home happy, and at the end of the year pay a fortune to the insurance companies and argue about it, but with no chance of success, because the entire nation, including its judges, want to defeat the terrible plague of road accidents.
Go to California
This is war. And just like in war, the regular rules can be bent a little. In Israel there's a law that forbids you to cross on a red light (this makes any pedestrian in Tel Aviv laugh.) Yet if there is an ambulance with a blaring siren behind you, the law says you are not allowed to make way on a red light. I once joined an ambulance and we received an urgent call. Cab drivers, more than others, were scared to make way, because they face the greatest risk.
I asked the ambulance driver about it, and he said this is Israel and everything is twisted. We were delayed at the corner of Ibn Gvirol and Dizengoff. We reached our destination a few minutes after the woman whom everyone was trying, but did not know to resuscitate, passed away.
But a law is a law. So if drivers knew we're talking about a law that comes with a punishment, as well as a heavy financial penalty, they would behave better. After all, all this foolishness about preventative driving classes is nonsense. In the classroom we find drivers who are well familiar with the laws. Yet they know, of course, that they are not facing any real risk.
Yet if Israelis are punished in their pocket with a high sum they cannot argue against, they will understand, just like the Americans do. Maybe even more so.
We keep on talking about education all the time, but people don't really want to be educated. They only believe in a firm hand. And a firm hand isn't a judge trying to argue with a lawyer. Infamous criminal Al Capone was jailed because of his murders, but rather, because of tax evasion. If they have to pay thousands of shekels more for car insurance, drivers will behave like good kids.
Those who don’t believe it should travel to California. This will cost them less than tripling their insurance, and they will see what awaits them and become scared.
