2 women in their 30s were killed in an accident between a bus and a private vehicle in Samaria February 20, 2022 (MDA)
Exactly two years ago, the Minister of Transportation at the time, Miri Regev, announced a multi-year national plan for road safety, which will reduce the number of fatalities by 50%.
"Human life is the most sacred value, and we are all obligated to do everything to preserve it," she declared.
"I see the promotion of road safety as one of the most important roles of the Ministry of Transportation, and I will work with all my might for this noble goal," Regev pledged.
The price tag for the program at the time was tens of billions of shekels.
But after two days in which six people were killed on Israel's roads, and the carnage on the roads jumped by 18% compared to the same period last year, with 52 deaths since the beginning of 2023, Regev actually preferred to express himself in matters of approving the legal coup.
And this is not a good sign of the importance that this bloody field now receives from those who are supposed to promote it.
Regev's plan never progressed beyond a government decision.
Merav Michaeli, who replaced her in the ministry, initially preferred to promote the reinforcement of public transportation before turning to the issue, and appointed a new, professional and politically unaffiliated leader of the National Road Safety Authority: Avi Naor, founder of the Or Yerok association, and whose son Ran was the driver in a car accident, stopped his activities as a businessman to to be appointed chairman. Erez Kita, CEO of Or Yerok, was appointed CEO of the authority.
The scene of a car accident in Jerusalem, February (Photo: MDA)
Naor and Kita presented a slightly different plan, significantly cheaper, and faster to implement.
They asked to select 11 clusters throughout the country, and not to focus, as always, on large cities and central highways: areas that include several Jewish and Arab settlements, urban and interurban roads, which will undergo comprehensive treatment of information, enforcement and minor infrastructure improvements.
The Gulf cluster was chosen to serve as a pilot at a cost of approximately NIS 80 million, for its approximately 450,000 residents in Kneam, the Kiryat, Tirat Carmel, Shafaram, Tamara and local councils such as Ebalin, Bir al Maksor, Dalit al-Carmel, Kiryat Tivon, Basmat Tivon and Usafia.
The ministries of transportation and finance scraped the money for the first cluster from here and there, so that it would start even before the budget was approved and serve as a pilot for the entire program, and that's where the project stopped.
The hope of launching a new cluster every four months collapsed along with the election.
Even now it is not clear what the budget will be for the one-year plan, and it depends together with the entire budget of the Ministry of Transportation on the negotiations with the Treasury. Regev, like Michaeli, marked the field of public transportation as the most important, unilaterally announcing the cancellation of a large part of the price reform that Michaeli led with the Treasury, and on a demand to receive 2 billion shekels per year as an addition to the field. The fact that the Ministry of Finance was informed about the plan from Regev's press conference did not really advance the negotiations between the two ministries, which are currently quite stuck two days before the formulation of the budget proposal.
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"The roads are redder than ever."
The scene of a road accident in Samaria (photo: official website, MDA)
Although Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich served as Minister of Transportation before Regev and is well aware of the hardships, now he is the Finance Minister whose role is mainly to refuse the demands of the other ministers, and he has his own issues to promote.
Relations between Regev and Smotrich were not good even before, and Regev, like other Likud ministers, currently has less political leverage to come to the Treasury with demands.
Even during the establishment of the government, the Ministry of Transportation was weakened, when the department responsible for planning urban infrastructure projects was transferred to the control of the Ministry of the Interior, so that its budget of approximately NIS 400 million was transferred to the responsibility of Aryeh Deri.
Deri was disqualified from office by the High Court of Justice and fired by Prime Minister Netanyahu, but the move did not strengthen the wing's professional activities, nor its connection with the Harald, and the consideration of road safety issues in its activities.
In the meantime, we have not heard from the Ministry of Transportation about promoting moves that have no major budgetary significance but have been on the table for several years, such as requiring license plates for bicycles and electric scooters, regulating the use of tools that reach a speed of 45 km/h, and increasing enforcement against rampant buyers. Regev did promise with She took office to speed up the construction of bicycle paths, but in her previous term she actually delayed them for political reasons, and a demand to divert budgets from paths in the densely populated areas in the center, to the periphery.
The scene of an accident near the Orim intersection (photo: official website, MDA)
The fall of the Bennet-Lapid government halted a controversial move promoted by former Justice Minister Gideon Sa'ar to make traffic offenses administrative, which would make it easier for the state to speed up proceedings against drivers and make it harder for them to defend themselves in court.
The queues for the traffic courts continue as usual, while the traffic division of the police is also waiting to fill dozens of open standards.
Just as Regev has other priorities, the Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir, who is in charge of the police, prefers to deal with other things for a moment and it is doubtful whether the budgets he will obtain will even reach the reinforcement of enforcement.
So as of now 2023 has started very badly in terms of road safety, and it doesn't seem like the new government has any interest in doing anything about it.
The fight for governance will continue to focus on the High Court - not on the roads.
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