The cases of violence on the roads have already become a national scourge, and the discourse surrounding the issue arose after the murder of Yuri Volkov in Holon.
>>Violence on the roads - a state scourge: the first article in the series<<
However, in the Negev the feeling is that road violence is especially present, especially on the roads around Beer Sheva.
The Israel Hayom team went on a journey through the Negev roads and documented the terrifying reality.
A vehicle crosses a red light near Segev Shalom, photo: Dodo Greenspan
Less than an hour of documentation was enough to discover the dimensions of the phenomenon.
Already in the first minutes we come across a donkey that is walking around unobstructed on the highway.
The donkey is not to blame, its diaspora owners left it as a ticking time bomb on the road.
If a driver collides with it at a speed of 100 km/h, he will surely be seriously injured.
Continuous beeping about the law
Immediately after, a motorcycle was spotted traveling against the direction of traffic.
The biker knows very well that he is breaking the law.
He could of course make a U-turn further down the road in an orderly fashion, but why bother.
further.
At the Segev Shalom intersection, on the exit towards Beer Sheva, five drivers were recorded in 25 minutes running a red light.
The time is 10 in the morning, there is no unusual congestion on the road, just a continuous beeping of the law.
Every five minutes(!) a red car passes by in full daylight at the infamous Route 25 intersection.
An enforcement camera is not a viable solution in the Negev, since not a week will pass and a missing hand will dismantle it.
What or who will stop them?
This is a question that the residents of the south have been asking for many years.
Ticking bomb.
A donkey is standing on a highway,
All this is known, of course, to all the relevant parties.
Even in the security system, which of course is not responsible for enforcing the roads, but uses them, they say out loud that the roads in the Negev are a national problem that needs creative thinking and solutions.
In fact, a large part of the governance issue in the south and the Negev boils down to one bottleneck - the problematic conduct on the road.
Governance begins on the road
Head of the Ramat Negev Council, Eran Doron: "The policing starts on the road. The smugglers drive on the roads, the burglars drive on the roads, and no one is on the roads. I see traffic police vehicles that my residents are driving away because they were driving 10-20 km/h more than the speed limit, But with regard to those who really need to be enforced - not enough is being done."
Not surprisingly, those who are most affected by the situation on the southern roads are the Bedouins.
According to the "Before Child Safety" organization, in the last five years (2017-2022), 45 children were run over to death, 28 of them belonging to the Bedouin community - 72% of the victims.
Seven children have died just since the beginning of the year.
Of course, the Jewish population in the Negev is also paying the price for the riots on the roads: last July, Nitzan Moshe and Anat Tel-Katlev were killed when a resident of the diaspora who was driving wildly and without a license collided with their car, killing him as well.
were we wrong
We will fix it!
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