What a nightmare! My sincere condolences to the families of the accident victims. May G-d grant hem peace.

Can one have 22 violations and still be employed as a "Professional"Driver.Go Figure....

If he had 22 priors then somewhere there is a a judge with a great deal of blood on his hands.

Why would a company employ a driver with 22 violations? Why wouldn't a judge take away his license after only 3? Why does our society not care enough to remove such judges and to punish companies that employ bad drivers?

Our hearts and prayers go out to all the victims of this terrible accident and their families. The entire way to Eilat is dangerous--accidents are frequent, and usually fatal...monuments to other accident victims mark the entire route. Yes, the driving culture here is not the best, but this road is deadly dangerous. There's few places to pass, many of them unsafe. Even if you're driving safely, you'll face multiple oncoming cars in your lane as they try to pass other drivers. This road needs to be 4 lanes, not 2, and in the meantime they should station more police---and actually ticket reckless drivers. I'm sure there's an argument to save money, but life is priceless. The government needs to take some of that 50% tax we pay and fix this damn road.

The nut behind the Wheel.

my cincere condolonces to the all hurted... however, i wouldn't be so sharp and decisive when judging the driver... the main question that nobody thinks of is that how many hours personal in israeli tourism is forced to work in order to supply service and still get some benefit for one self out of it? the question is how much rest this man had prior to the tough, in a sense of distance, drive to eilat? it is easy now in the aftermath of this terrible tragedy to throw the anger at one individual. i m convinced that the problem of the treatment of simple worker within israeli tourism industry is much deeper than this shallow rage stone-throwing and pointing of a guilt of one single individual. this won't bring the St. Petersburg's dead.

If the MOT were interested in more than just money, the drivers in this country might be more respectful of each other and their vehicles. In other countries, you get a learner's permit for a year before you are eligible to receive a license, thus gaining the opportunity to learn good driving habits at no cost. Here, you do a minimum of 28 lessons which cost 80-100 shekels on average and if you manage to pass everything first shot, you become a learner driver for 3 months. By the time the kids get the ability to be on the road, good habits are replaced with reckless excitement.

Who needs to worry about Iran and the N-bomb?

Reason to take it nice and easy.

so terribly sorry for all those people, their families, their lives....

or my last government supervisor that was the worst screw up i ever had for a boss in 40 years of work. bs makes quit a big impresion on "brains' that know nothing but pretend that they do. i hear our scientist are working on a brain scanner that can read your thoughts.i can't wait till they perfect it and scan the brains of all our "honest" leaders----and bus drivers of course !

Oh we chosen people, chosen for what I ask myself? 1.4b Muslims hate us, WW2 Christians didn't help us. Israel has lost over 25,000 people since 48, when the UN created it, AND an adjacent Palis state ( plus Jordan- the real Palis state). In 67, the UN did nothing,,while Egypt/Syria mobilized and declared war by closing the Straits. In 73, again, the Arab world violated the previous cease fire. The 2 Intifadas were illegal acts against the occupying authority due to the above. Iran has over 600 units of pure uranium, enough for a bomb, even though dismissed by the world's pundits. Over 600,000 Israelis have moved away. Hez and Hamas are armed to the teeth, while Israel's leaders look away. Thomas Friedman says that the US will retaliatate if Israel is nuked. Yeah sure, oh come on Friedman. He also says it's the settlements baby. Britains officials say returning the Golan Hts will take the steam out of Hezbollah..right on!!! Oh come on. Israel sends 600 soldiers to fight 200 zealots..over a valueless building (symbol of nothing really). Back home, a Jews ponzi scheme costs US, and us and Jews, 50b., while Pollard and Abramoff are in jail. Kosher business is busted. Bottom line: the road is a pimple..but large one, costing over 25 lives..Something is wrong folks. Get it, into your chosen heads.

Who called the freak a driver?

People don't act like this in other countries. They don't put their lives--and the lives of those around them--at risk so that they can have a reckless fight with another driver. I had the gross misfortune of being in a monit sherut on Road 2 when my driver and the driver of another one started chasing each other and cursing each other after one driver cut the other off. Whereas in a civilized country they would have honked at each other, flipped each other off, and went off on their way, but because it was Israel, they chased each other, nearly colliding with each other, several cars, and a bus stop on numerous occasions--until myself and some Australian tourists begged the driver to stop. When my Israeli in-laws came to visit my and my wife in the USA for the first time, they were shocked by how comparatively polite the drivers were. They couldn't believe that we weren't getting honked at if we didn't start driving within 3 nanoseconds of the light turning green. We didn't get cut off. And other drivers gave us the right of way just to be nice. None of these things would ever happen in Israel's me-me-me culture. Israelis want to blame their government for everything. What they forget is that their elected leaders are simply a microcosm of Israelis as a whole: selfish, greedy, and with no regard for anyone but themselves.

Yoghurt? Yoghurt has CULTURE....

And I believe this is an occasion for mourning, which means,... feel free to cut the crap.

While I hardly approve of the way many Israeli drivers behave on the road, I find it offensive that an American would lecture us about culture and mock all Israelis, calling us "selfish, greedy, and with no regard for anyone but themselves." I've lived in America, and I can tell you that selfish and greedy people live in both countries, as do good people. But if you want to generalize, then Israel has a much more pluralistic society, and people here tend to help each other much more so than in America, which is extremely individualistic. Therefore, you blaming the entire Israeli people and their culture for this accident is out of line, and you would do wisely to take it back. If anyone is to blame here, it's the driver. As rude as Israelis can get on the roads, I hardly think that most of them, when put in a bus full of people on a dangerous road, would drive so recklessly as this idiot. And by the way, not that this is an excuse for Israeli drivers - but in many cases the infrastructure IS to blame here, as well as the congestion on the roads. In America you don't suffer from these problems as much as here. And while American drivers there are indeed calmer that their Israeli counterparts - there are much more cases of DUI and DWI in America than in Israel, often with tragic results.

in the middle of a public town square is the same as allowing a bus-'driver' with 22 prior offenses to sit behind the steering wheel of a bus full of people. As long as the MOT, Police and Justice department allow that especially bus and truckdrivers can continue to drive on our roads after having shown that they are unfit drivers and thus go on driving (with license!) in intoxicated or/and overtired condition while at the same time driving also probably unsafe and overloaded vehicles, then there is absolutely no limit to the catastrophes that have, may and will happen. The 'Or Yarok' Minute for Safety recently to commemorate the 30.000 dead people that Israeli traffic has cost us since 1948 was just a wrong and just totally inefficient gesture. If we as citizens do not react in such an extreme way as to halt all transportation on all roads for at least 24 hours then this will just continue on a daily basis. Being an Israeli realist and driving on Israeli roads for exactly 40 years now, I know this will not happen as most Israelis still believe that an accident cannot happen to them because they are 'professional' drivers .......

Its not the driver to blame but the bus company tor letting a person with 22 proir offences to drive one of its buses. I drive on buses every day, my life is in their hand when they break the speed limits and go through red lights. The transportion ministry should learn by this tragic accident to make sure it does not happen again.

How can you blame the infrastructure when there is clearly evidence of aggressive driving in this case and so many others. How many israelis drive drunk? Have no respect for red traffic lights? Is that the infrastructure too? Yes every country has rude people but Israel seems to thrive on screwing over the "friar". Isn't it ironic that the country's name begins with the letter "I"

when will we introduce legislation that keeps people with over and above a certain number of convictions from getting behind the wheel - whether it's as taxi drivers, bus drivers, chauffeurs or those who drive our children?

Israelis are more helpful to each other than Americans? What country are you living in? I lived in Israel for nearly a decade after making Aliyah. I never found them to be any more or less helpful than other people around the world. That's a ridiculous stereotype that Israelis constantly cite when people point out their culture's legitimate and undeniable failings. I am not "helped" less or more here in America. The difference is that here, to get help, I don't have to resort to yelling or complaints, like you do in Israel, where people will generally go out of their way not to help you if they either don't know you or if there's nothing in it for them. Strangers don't invite me to Shabbat less here, and when people collapse on the street in New York City, I've never seen people just let them lay there and die (quite the opposite). And I'd point out to you that that Americans have the highest rate of per capita charitable giving in the world. See: http://gpr.hudson.org/files/publications/GlobalPhilanthropy.pdf . No other country comes close. Israel isn't even mentioned. But note what it says about public and private philanthropy in America. Also, please cite some evidence as to Israel's DWI rates as compared to the rest of the world. Your assertion sounds fishy, considering Israel's unexplainably high level of traffic fatalities.

Israel certainly has a problem with aggressive drivers, but there's also a reason why the term "road rage" was coined in the good old USA. And we won't even go into all the horrific crashes caused by incompetent American teen-age drivers who think they're immortal.

an idiot country but rather the idiot people with their idiot government, who live in this beautiful country, the problem.