Why aren’t Israelis model drivers?
Because they spend too much time looking at posters of models.
A multi-year study commissioned by Israel’s National Road Safety Authority found that traffic accidents increased by 40 percent to 50 percent when giant billboards – many featuring scantily attired Israeli models like Bar Rafaeli – were put up along the Ayalon Highway in Tel Aviv, a major thoroughfare.
The research by the Technion Institute studied more than 22,000 road accidents.
“Advertising signs placed on the sides of roadways are designed to [distract] driver attention from driving tasks, and therefore may affect driver performance and cause accidents,” according to an early version of the study.
“The more attention the advertising sign attracts, the more profitable it may be to the advertiser,” the recent study states. “Such signs could … hurt driving performance, this causing accidents indirectly.
Unfortunately,” said Shmuel Aboav, CEO of the Or Yarok Association for Safer Driving, “financial considerations carry more weight than considerations of road safety and human life.”
steve@jewishweek.org
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